God Loves the Homosexual

I have braved a few real-life conversations with homosexual friends. I distinctly remember how I felt on each occasion. Queasy mostly. Knowing that Christians often have a head start in the race of bigotry, I had no desire to win us any additional medals. In each conversation, my Christian affiliation betrayed me. Hence, my homosexual friends gestured knowingly at the back pocket of my soul where I had temporarily stuffed the fact that homosexuality does not fit with my faith.

On one rare occasion, I even initiated the conversation… only because my friend hoped our Christian group would embrace his homosexuality and faith and perhaps join him in championing homosexuality as a non-sin.

Fearing he might be emotionally stir-fried in group, I offered a gentler “CliffsNotes” of the responses he might encounter. This forced me to disclose the contents of my back pocket. To pull out, unfold, and display the wrinkles and stains on my evolving take on homosexuality and faith. There were dozens of tangible traits I cherished about my friend, and I told him so. But – in a voice trembling with nervousness and compassion – I confessed I was afraid my friendship might seem insincere if I couldn’t affirm what he held to be the central part of his identity: his sexuality.

“As far as I can tell,” I gulped, “the Bible only introduces one kind of sexual union, and that is between a man and a woman. So, I have to believe this is the course that leads to the fullest life – the life the Creator intended for us.”

When I spit out these defining sentences, I worried all my friend could hear was Blah-Blah-Christian-Blah-Blah. But he stared back at me kindly, so I continued, thankful there were no microphones or flashbulbs as I struggled forward in my statement about homosexuality.

“I want you to know I believe God loves every person deeply and equally. That includes the homosexual. It would be dishonest for me to pretend I agree with or understand the path you believe is right, but I accept that you are free to choose your own life course. That is not because I’m especially charitable or generous, but because God is.”

I think the conversation changed me more than my friend, because it forced me to acknowledge parts of God’s will I sometimes overlooked. To accept that God doesn’t want me to do things even he does not choose to do – to control or hijack someone else’s freedom. I am not asked to impersonate the Holy Spirit but to live a life that gives of God’s fluorescence. And I resolve to remember that God often allows us to learn just as much as we travel our chosen paths as we would have if we had walked only his lighted portions.

But wait, we protest, that is like saying that God allows learning even when we go the wrong way. But wait, we continue, now that we think about it, that sounds a whole lot like grace.

Sarah Raymond Cunningham

Author, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation

Quote from Unchristian by David Kinnaman and Fermi Project (Baker Books, 2007) pg. 113-114

As for me, Richard, I believes that God loves the homosexual

Yet, I also believes that God in the Bible disapproved homosexual relationship

But wait, God’s grace is big enough for homosexuality… it just take time to change

Jesus can do the impossible. He is able.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.