Month: January 2011

Christian Perspectives on LGBT

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So a friend recently asked my opinion regarding the differing views churches hold about LGBT people. Since most people seem to think churches’ stances are limited to the either/or of complete rejection or full acceptance, I thought it was helpful to reflect on the more nuanced opinions that are out there. I’ve decided to post the list of views I came up with below. But first I need to state a few disclaimers and warnings.

I want to post this list to see what other options the readers here might have to contribute. The point of this is not to argue which view is right, but merely to list what views are held by church. Also, I’m writing as someone who has not personally experienced the pain and struggle that typify many LGBT peoples experience with the church. I don’t want to ignore that pain or that in discussing churches’ views I am discussing things that have affected the lives of real people, but I’m only trying here to give a snapshot of what I’ve seen. I’ve also left out the views on the extremes – i.e. the Fred Phelps hatred and the anything goes tolerance – to focus on views that I’ve had experience with in churches. So here’s my 2 cents…

Group 1. This group thinks all forms being gay are a willful choice to sin against God and the Bible. While they might not use hate speech like Fred Phelps, they generally won’t allow gay people to attend their churches. If they do, they insist that they repent and seek a cure for their sinful choices. Often this group tries to hide the existence of gay people in culture as well. They fight libraries that have children’s books about two mommies, they see a gay agenda in the media if a gay person shows up on a TV show, and oppose gay marriage as an endorsement of sin. If they know anyone who is actually gay, it is generally only someone who has been treated of their problem and now asks for continual prayer that they won’t fall back into sin. To them the Bible is clear and easy to understand in its condemnation of same-sex relationships since (in their view) people don’t interpret the Bible, it simple speak the truth for itself.

Group 2. The second group would still say that being gay is unbiblical/sinful, but they would be more nuanced and loving in that assertion. They may or may not see being gay as a choice, but they will generally admit that it is something that goes so deep in a person that they cannot willfully choose not to be gay. So while they might say that being gay may not be a choice (and therefore not wrong in and of itself), for them acting on gay desires is always wrong. So while they love and accept people who have the condition, they condemn gay sex, gay relationships, and gay marriage. So there are churches where people who openly identify as gay can attend (although they are always known by that label) and they might even be allowed to serve in some non-leadership positions in the church (but generally never with children). Like hetero singles, they are constantly encouraged to keep pure but have the harder struggle since they know that they will never be allowed to find love without slipping into sin and being rejected by their church community. There is generally much outreach in these communities to get practicing gays to join this “accepting” community where they have support to stop practicing.

Group 3. The third group generally believes that being gay is a condition and not a choice. They may or may not believe that practicing being gay is biblical or not, but what they believe about that matters less than the fact that they know they need to be loving and accepting of all people. Gay people are God’s beloved just as hetero people are, so the church should love them just as God loves them. The discussions here are generally about rights and justice. The language is that all people should be granted the same benefits of civil society no matter who they love. So gay marriage is supported and any discrimination whatsoever is fought against and condemned. Some in this group would still speak against gay promiscuity, just as they would hetero promiscuity (which is part of why they support gay marriage). They understand that the Bible has been used in hurtful and hateful ways against gay people in the past and they want to move past that. They might have read some alternative interpretations of the few Bible passages that seem to condemn same-sex relationships, but they may or may not be convinced by either interpretation. Since they generally know and are friends with gay people, they are okay with the ambiguity of biblical interpretation because they see being in loving relationship as being far more important than dogma.

Group 4. In the fourth group I would place those that have devoted the time to digging through scripture and history and have decided that there is nothing unbiblical about same-sex relationships. Their decision generally isn’t based on cultural-pressure or a sense of tolerance, but the conclusion of a serious wrestling with scripture. They are often told that they are unbiblical and just want to support sin, but often they have very strong doctrine based on the Bible and Christian tradition (although it often is more of an ancient or postmodern interpretation than modern evangelical). They will be advocates for the gay community when needed, but since their theology doesn’t see gay people as other, they often don’t see people first by that label. They often have a hard time finding churches where they fit in as many churches either still see gay people as somehow inferior or make the entire church’s identity about including gay people. While many people in this group devote themselves to wrestling honestly with the whole of scripture, there is a portion who knew they had to try to figure out the gay issue in scripture and so that is the extent of their wrestling. So while they have intellectually resolved that scripture does not condemn gay people, they still might hold to “biblical” ideas of sexism and racism because they were taught such things when they were younger. So it is hard to classify this group as liberal or tolerant, they are simply those who are willing to wrestle with scripture and conclude that there is no need to condemn.

Do these groups seem accurate? What other perspectives would you add?

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Missionary Code of Conduct

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I just recently became aware of a discussion that grew out of the 3rd Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelism in Cape Town this past October. It’s been interesting to hear responses to this event from people who were there – especially the response from indigenous people groups who saw the whole event as dominated by the ideas, plans, and agendas of the wealthy, white, Western church (a business as usual they desired to move beyond). Yet, I’ve been intrigued by the conversations I’ve heard regarding a push for an international code for Christian missionaries that seemed to gain momentum at Lausanne. As reported here –

Christianity wants to show that it totally rejects abuse and all physical or mental violence, said the director of the International Institute for Religious Freedom of the World Evangelical Alliance, Thomas Schirrmacher (Bonn), on Wednesday evening at the 3rd Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelism in Cape Town.
The coming code of ethics is in favor of mission, however it will condemn all immoral forms, such as psychological pressure or material incentives for people who want to change their religion, said Schirrmacher, who is a sociologist of religion and the Spokesman for Human Rights of the Evangelical Alliance as well as founder of the International Institute for Religious Freedom (2006).
According to statements from the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, and the World Evangelical Alliance, such a document will be jointly adopted. The World Evangelical Alliance claims to be a platform worldwide for more than 400 million theologically conservative Christians from more than 120 countries. The World Council of Churches, a coalition of Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox churches, represents more than 500 million Christians. The Vatican represents more than a billion people. The three organizations together represent 97 percent of all Christians.

I studied missiology in grad school at Wheaton College, which is the epitome of the wealthy, white, Western church world. I know the missionary horror stories – the manipulation, the psychological violence, and the utterly un-Christian tactics used to get people to convert. I’ve explored the statistics regarding the high percentages of people with mental disorders who go into mission work. Regardless of the number of great people doing missions, there are also a disturbingly high number of seriously messed up people out there serving as official representatives of Christianity and inflicting serious harm around the world. For a good number of them the harm is justified if the net result is a few more people saved. And for even more of them the mental issues are overlooked because either “the workers are few (and the harvest plentiful) or because of an evangelical belief that psychology is liberal/satanic.

Needless to say, even as a sympathetic insider who has worked within the Christian world much of her adult life and who nearly ended up on the mission field herself, I am well aware of a need for a code of conduct like this. My real question is if establishing such a code would have any effect whatsoever.

The cynical side of me thinks that a code like this would be similar to codes created by most clothing manufacturers. They create these great documents about caring about human rights and high standards for how their workers are treated so that they can show concerned activists their policies, but then they never bother translating these codes into the languages spoken at their factorie. The ideals of the boardroom never actually reach the very workers they claim to protect. I have to wonder if a code of conduct like this would be ratified by these umbrella organizations but never actually reach the in the trenches folks who are expected to abide by it.

Similarly I wonder what the response of many of the very old-school evangelical missions organizations who still operate out of a neo-colonial mindset will be to something that may impede their efforts. I’ve been at enough conferences and training classes on missions to know that something like this can easily be dismissed as a tool of Satan meant to silence the advancement of Christ. Persecution (i.e. people being offended by you) is seen as a badge of honor for many missionaries. There is little conception that the faith they present and how they present it can be toxic. Calling people to love actual people and not just see them as project that must get saved is just not the way things are done.

Yet at the same time there can be power in the symbolic act of creating something like this. I think of how often people express the desire that they wish the Vatican would just take a strong stance against priests who molest children. While such a statement might not change what the priests do, it helps people outside the church see that the church doesn’t support the evil done by its supposed representatives. Missionary work has a sordid history and was for too long the bedfellow of colonialism and racism. Symbolically standing against doing evil in the name of Christ (while perhaps not changing actual practice) will help send the message that the church doesn’t monolithically support immoral manipulation and coercion.

I’m interested to see what becomes of this discussion for a code of conduct, and even more interested to see what impact (if any) it has on the world.

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My Struggle Today

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My daughter came home from school recently with a worksheet that described life before and after Martin Luther King Jr. One side of the sheet had statements like “Before Dr. King African-American children couldn’t go to the same school as white children. Was that fair?” while the other side said “Now African-American and white children can go to school together. Is this fair?” The point was obviously an at home discussion about prejudice, but what it sparked with our daughter was a discussion about the concept of race itself.

Emma is just in kindergarten and in both preschool and kindergarten she has been one of maybe three or four white children in classes of 20-25 kids. Just going to our neighborhood grocery store or park is like attending a world cultures assembly. Needless to say, she is just used to everyone around her looking different. When she describes her friends at school, she never mentions skin color and instead differentiates her friends by the sort of hair they have. She knows and celebrates that different cultures have different holidays and types of food, but until now she has had little need to understand the construct of race.

So in discussing the world before and after Martin Luther King Jr. we had a hard time introducing her to the concept. At first we tried to explain that segregation meant that she wouldn’t have been able to be in the same school as her two closest friends (who happen to be African-American). She then wanted to know who had done something wrong to prevent them from all going to the same school. We tried to explain about skin color and race then, but she really wasn’t getting it. As far as she knows it is perfectly normal for everyone around her to have different colors of skin (and to speak with all sorts of accents), trying to explain that that didn’t used to be the case was beyond her 5 year old mind.

While I completely understand the need to teach the sins of the past so that they will not be repeated (and restitution can be made), I had to wonder if this lesson on race could do her more harm than good. If my daughter sees no reason why people would ever be different because of skin color, I don’t want to be the one explaining to her the alternative (and I completely realize here that this may be a dilemma only those in positions of cultural power wrestle with which adds a whole different dimension). As I faced this dilemma, I was reminded of the time I read her the (controversial) book And Tango Makes Three about a baby penguin that was adopted by two penguin daddies. The book that had adults all up in arms for presenting the existence of same-sex relationships to children was for her no big deal. To her a book solely about a penguin getting two daddies was boring – what others saw as extreme she accepted as normal. In that instance, I decided very quickly that I wasn’t going to try to convince her that her definition of normal wasn’t universal.

But I’m uncertain in this situation how to best guide her through these issues. I know I need to teach her truth and expose her to reality, but I don’t want to corrupt her heart by being the one to teach her about racism, bigotry, or sexism simply because I am speaking against them. I assume the evils of the world will make themselves known to her eventually, but I’d rather her think being kind and loving to all people regardless of differences is the normal way to be for as long as possible. But I am still left with days like today and school worksheets asking me to teach her about a great man by destroying what she thinks is normal. And I don’t know what to do.

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Existing and Thriving

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During a recent conference call with the Emergent Village Council, Deth Im made a statement that has stuck with me. He said, “communities can exist for themselves but they thrive when a question arises that they don’t already have the answer to.” I love the idea because it so immediately rang true with my experience.

It is that difference between existing and thriving that stood out to me. I think most of us, and the communities we are a part of, concern ourselves with simply existing. Sometimes we exist to survive – to hold it all together and make it through the day. It is our needs and our desires that matter above all else. And at times simply existing is all we can do. If all we can do is survive, that’s just fine. But simply existing is not the same as thriving.

I know in my own life when I retreat into myself and concern myself with just what’s going on within the walls of my own house, I become a different person. I’m far more withdrawn, depressed and not very pleasant to be around. It takes concerning myself with something bigger than myself that helps me be the sort of person I actually want to be. Thriving means being fully alive – being filled with the passion and energy that comes from opening myself up to challenges, learning new things, and using my blessings to bless others.

From what I’ve experienced, churches operate the same way. I’ve been a part of churches that for some (if not most) of my time there have existed mostly for themselves. They are concerned with meeting the needs of the congregation – making sure they are fed (or simply entertained). They are concerned with the stereotypical butts, budgets, and buildings and spend a lot of time discussing why they are such a special community that everyone should feel blessed to be a part of. On one hand, all of that is part of what a church needs to do to survive. But sometimes going through these motions in order to survive starts to have a negative effect. The navel gazing – intended to strengthen and help the community – slowly and often subtlety leads to the withering away of that very community. All the energy turns inward leading to the corporate version of the depressed, apathetic, and listless person I described above. The body is surviving and pragmatically getting the basics done, but it is obviously not thriving.

What I find most disturbing is that the general prescription for this inward focused withering away is simply more self-care – better programs, a building-project, community meetings – making things bigger and better for the self. But none of that leads to thriving growth, it simply sustains and prolongs the slow death. And when there is nothing outside of the self to bring inspiration and new energy in, burn-out is quick. Like gardens, without the constant engagement with outside elements people and churches will never thrive.

When we engage with questions that we don’t have the answer to we are forced to move beyond ourselves. We have to face challenges, expose ourselves to new people and new ideas, seek solutions to complex problems, and use our resources in new ways. It becomes impossible to remain static when we must constantly wrestle with constant new input. Instead of withering away, we grow and in that sense, thrive. This is something I have to remind myself of after periods of inward withdrawal. I don’t despise such periods – everyone needs rest – but I know I can’t stay there if my desire is to be fully alive. And I’m beginning to see that churches can’t either. We are the living body of Christ – living things need to grow and thrive.

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