An Evangelical Approach to Homosexuality - A Proposal

There is a lot of talk among Evangelicals about whether homosexuality is "right" or not. There are people on both sides of the debate, each quoting their Bible. I don't know if this will ever really be resolved, but there is one thing that I think we all can agree on:

We as the church ought to demonstrate love and grace towards people who are gay.

At this point in the argument, however it is common for someone to say, "Yes, but there is a difference between accepting someone and condoning their behavior."

It is at this point that my proposal comes in. Let me begin with some very sobering facts: Statistically, homosexuals have a higher rate of drug abuse, mental illness, and suicide than the larger population. Alarmingly higher in fact. This is well known in the LGBT community, and the reason is quite clear: the rejection they experience - being kicked out of their homes, hiding who they are, being threatened and hated, and so on can easily make a person sick, depressed, broken, and even drive them to suicide. So when gays talk about the importance of being accepted, this is not just political, its something very very close to home for them. It is quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Because of that fact, I think it is rather clear where our priorities should be, and where the priorities of Jesus would be. In his time he was known for "fellowshiping with sinners". Religious folks saw how he welcomed sinners, and concluded that he must not be a prophet. And what did Jesus do? Did he defend his reputation? Did he make sure not to give people the wrong impression? No, he went out of his way to reach out to these people on the margins, often causing open confrontations between himself and the religious leaders of his day. That is our model. Jesus who cares waaaaay more abut loving people than he does with if that looks proper or not.

So based on that model of asking "what would Jesus do" taken together with the severity people in the gay community have of hearing more than anything "you are loved," I propose an indefinite moratorium on pronouncements of the morality or immorality of homosexuality. Let's put that on hold for something much more important.

Regardless of where we stand on the rightness or the wrongness of being gay, I think we should all realize that none of that matters much when people are dying. We need to change our priorities and focus on the critical issue of communicating love and acceptance to these people. Communicating it to a fault, communicating it so completely that we are "misunderstood" and get a "bad reputation," because that is exactly what Jesus did. I want to hear sermons only on how we should love and welcome gay people into our churches, and I want those sermons to be completely unbalanced.

We have spent so much time being "balanced" in the other direction, so much time worrying about "giving the wrong impression" that it is time to shift our lopsided boat the other way. Because as long as our priority is in looking moral rather than in showing compassion and grace to those on the outside, we simply do not have the priorities of Jesus. And when we do not reflect Christ, we are giving the wrong impression. So let's change that.