Shortly before National Coming Out Day, Focus on the Family's Jim Daly published an Op-Ed on CNN.com. "'Hate' is too big a word to be used with such little restraint," he argued, urging advocates of gay rights to realize that evangelicals don't hate gay people, just gay sexual activity.
Such sentiments are widespread among evangelicals, even encapsulated in a maxim: "love the sinner, hate the sin." They explain why well-meaning people think keeping gays from marriage is the loving thing to do. But as an overriding moral principle, the maxim fails miserably.
The best way to understand why is to look at it in light of Christian history. Slave-holding Christians in the 1700s and 1800s believed that, because God had ordained some be slaves, keeping slaves in chains was actually the loving thing to do. As slave-turned-orator Frederick Douglass recounted the reasoning: "God made one portion of men to do the working, and another to do the thinking." And if that's the case, isn't more loving to insist slaves occupy the roles God has created for them than ignore God's will and allow slaves to be free? Many brilliant, well-meaning, genuine Christians at the time answered "yes," including Charles Hodge, a Princeton theologian and father of modern evangelical theology.
Although some evangelicals were heroically involved in the campaign to end slavery, a century later, many actively resisted the civil rights movement. According to Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the evangelical Right, the movement formed in response to "Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation." As the government sought to enforce de-segregation, it intruded into the the relatively isolated evangelical subculture, with a sorry result. "Whereas evangelical abolitionists of the nineteenth century sought freedom for African Americans," as Randall Balmer, an evangelical and historian at Columbia University laments, "the Religious Right of the late twentieth century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination."
Most evangelicals today are not consciously racist against African Americans. And in 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for its complicity with racism. But because evangelicals usually view prejudice as individual, conscious animus toward others, many are blind to the ways in which policies they support systematically disadvantage particular groups. Christian Smith, a long-time evangelical (though current Catholic) and professor of sociology at Notre Dame, co-directed a study with Michael O. Emerson of evangelicals and race in America. "Despite devoting considerable time and energy to solving the problem of racial division," they concluded "white evangelicalism likely does more to perpetuate the racialized society than to reduce it." His study shows that it is possible for individuals to consciously love another class of humans even while unwittingly supporting systematic discrimination against them.
Evangelical history on the subject of feminism and environmentalism also teach us how late twentieth-century evangelicalism has tended to mistake it's own fear of social change for God's will. As the evangelical Right took form, the Equal Rights Amendment emerged as a powerful force for female quality. The popular evangelical press decried it as among the "problems that are tearing America apart today." With many evangelicals interpreting the Bible as teaching female subservience to men, the culture as a whole resisted the movement. Most evangelicals, at least in theory, support some form of female equality today.
Due to a combination of apocalyptic expectations, belief in the dominion of humans over Earth, and the acceptance of conservative political ideology, the evangelical community has been among the most visible opponents of environmentalism in America. Ronald Reagan's secretary of the interior justified complacency because he expected Jesus to return soon and Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals was nearly expelled from the organization for endorsing climate science. According to a 2007 Barna poll, "Evangelicals stood out regarding their views on the environment. Only 35% said that protecting the environment should be a top priority -- the lowest score recorded among any of the 80 subgroups studied." Most mainstream evangelical leaders now support environmentalism, with even the Southern Baptist Convention declaring "the time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more."
The same cultural mechanisms responsible for the community's past, self-acknowledged blunders are at work today in its response to homosexuality. Evangelicalism still has an orientation against social change, still bases views on pseudoscience, still has a simplistic and overconfident approach to biblical interpretation, and still is unwilling to tolerate those who disagree.
Evangelicalism's greatest failure on homosexuality is not that all evangelicals are filled with conscious hatred toward gays, but its unjustified self-confidence, its close-mindedness, and its egregious failure to learn from its own history.
And that's why "love the sinner, hate the sin" doesn't cut it. Christians are too prone to mistake their own prejudice and fear of social change for God's will. As a result, love cannot only require holding others accountable to systems of morality; it requires reconsidering systems of morality too. Part of "loving the sinner" must be making sure that legitimate desires are not classified as "sin."
Follow Jonathan Dudley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jonathandudley
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God backs you up....if in Him.
God has this thing called ME and He is sure of Him self. It is also called trust me above your self.
Try to remember..............God has nothing to loose. So we can trust Him.
When you show humans who they are in Christ they change their life.
But when you take on the hate........they rebel with pleasure.
Jesus knew what He was doing. By telling people about the Kingdom of God.
Rather than. ..........threats.
Laws with the Spirit of God make people REBEL.
Laws like "War on...."
It is absolutely outlandish and un-Godly to see how so many self-proclaimed "followers of Christ" attempt to by-pass "grace" and take matters into their own hands.
(SMH in despair)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixkck8QnjY
--ez
Are all humans sinners? Yes.
Can we be saved through good works? No.
Therefore, does it matter whether a non-Christian repents of a particular sin? No.
What am I missing here?
They do care about the vicious attacks that they experience from members of the church and they do care about the legal privileges that they are denied because their relationships are not recognised. How does it harm the family unit to allow a gay man to sit at his dying partner's deathbed or to have the same inheritance rights as a heterosexual couple? For that matter, how does it harm the family unit for a gay couple to celebrate their love for each other in a legally recognised ceremony?
Details please.
So, what am I missing?
What non-Christians tend to care about is the ability to live their lives without interference. Many Christians, however, seem determined to enforce their morality on the rest of the country. It's in that context that the Christian view of sin tends to come up. If someone is being prevented from doing something (e.g. Getting married) because some Christians think its sinful, then of course non-Christians are going to be talking about it. Why is this surprising to you?
As a black Christian it is extremely offensive to compare homosexuality to my skin color. I was born black and can never ever change that. Too many ex-gays that exist to prove that homosexuality isn't immutable. Yes, there are many ex-gays who are suspect but if you can find even ONE true ex-gay that immediately shutters that theory of immutability.
It was extremely offensive using slavery as an example of 'loving the sinner while hating the sin' because being black isn't a sin while being a brutal slaveholder and kidnapper was a sin condemned to death!
He first covered up all the spots with brown makeup, but it would run when he sweated during his concerts, and ultimately, the white became more than the brown of his skin (naturally, due to the illness)...This is when he began to bleaching the still-brown portions of his skin, in order to be all one color.
Here are photos of Mr. Jackson with vitiligo prior to the bleaching process: http://floacist.wordpress.com/2007/06/10/vitiligo-photos-michael-jackson/
Would you want to walk around spotted? Most people with vitiligo, when it becomes prevalent enough over their body, resort to bleaching.
The reason we know he did not change his race is that he always said how proud he was to be a black person. Most of the people he worked with, consulted with, and was influenced by artistically were black. The black world was the world in which he lived, moved, and felt most comfortable.
It is cruel that people would continue to say he changed his race.
There are not "too many ex-gays." There are hundreds at most, a number that fluctuates with all the 'relapses' that occur.
There's no scientific evidence that ex-gay therapy is effective, and much evidence that it is harmful.
There is not a single ex-gay, though, that can confirm 100% that they have completely created heterosexual desires, while eliminating all homosexual desires. That person does not and will never exist.
By the way, aren't you the least bit aware of the hypocrisy of completely trusting the very, very few ex-gays that say "I'm totally not gay anymore you guys" as evidence, but, when literally MILLIONS of gay people can and do testify that they never chose to be gay, and that they've always been attracted to the same gender (basically, the same personal testimony of the supposed and suspect ex-gays), you're a skeptic?
Sexual orientation is immutable. This is a fact.
Oh, and when you demand "eliminating all homosexual desires", you are resorting to the fallacy of "moving the goalpost".
Finally, no, what you claim as 'fact' is no such thing. There is no way you or any scientist can honestly claim scientific proof for the claim, "sexual orientation is immutable". Why, ethics considerations make it impossible for scientists to do a double blind experiment to prove it, unless we can talk the Chinese into doing it: we know they don't believe in human rights, especially not for their huge prison population.
The maxim “hate the sin – love the sinner” works quite well even if some falter in their attempt to fulfill it, or any teaching of the Christ. Christians are not perfect – but should attain to be. It is a journey of self-improvement. No doubt if Christians did not attempt to “help” homosexuals, they would be accused of ignoring/discriminating against them while in their service to others. (Please remember – heterosexuals, just like homosexuals, are admonished to “sin no more”. But all too often in today’s press, just homosexuals are the “victims” while Christians are victimized.)
The people in Dud’s world are quick to see the bad in Christianity while purposely ignoring most/all of the good, especially for journalistic objective. But such are those that make such sweeping assumptions and exploit the past “intolerance” of other groups, only to turn and be intolerant of them, and even their maxims, today.
This hit-piece accomplishes little more than to incite a negative reaction toward Christianity from unthinking readers, and perhaps calm a momentary tingle Dud had running up his leg over the thought of writing it. F minus !
Love may disagree, even argue, but doesn't belittle.
So your calling Mr. Dudley "Dud" shows love?
(dud: Noun:
1.A thing that fails to work properly or is otherwise unsatisfactory or worthless.
2.An ineffectual person.)
And your comment "a momentary tingle Dud had running up his leg over the thought of writing it" shows your love for Mr. Dudley? Somehow I missed it.
I disagree to some extent with Mr. Dudley. A person of good will can actually love the sinner while still considering what that person does to be sinful, and hating that sin. Those folks may never agree, but aren't being hateful.
The problem I see with "love the sinner, hate the sin" is that most of the folks making that statement do not seem to love the sinner. Their words and actions say quite the opposite, and when they make that statement, they bring discredit upon all of our words.
As for missing whether a comment shows love, how many times and in how many ways have YOU missed how love is shown to you? Most likely far many more times and in far more many ways than Michael in his post. After all, if you do not thank God for even the sufferings in your life, you are missing the love God shows to you.
What!?
Dude, when all the poor, sick and down-trodden are helped to a successful degree by Christian groups, THEN they can try and "cure" gay people. No gay people are asking for their help, except for the few that have had it beaten into them (figuratively or literally) that the thing they have no control over and that in no way harms anyone is going to send them to Hell forever. And doing things like actively fighting against civil rights of gay people is not what I would consider 'help'.
And by religion in this discussion, I mean the big three Middle Eastern, monotheistic religions.