Called to Bigotry? No! Called to Faithfulness? Yes!

Having written about racism for many years I have observed a changing climate among organizations, writers and researchers doing important work on that subject. Over the years I have used and given research assistance to several groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Earlier this year Casey Sanchez who writes for that organization called me about some tapes I had that were made by an Identity Pastor, Arnold Murray. The tapes were the main proof that Murray is an Identity Pastor who rants against the Jews. (He calls them Kenites instead of Jews but sometimes he lets the truth slip.)

I helped Sanchez get the information and out of interest looked up other articles he had written.

I found the article, “Straight Like Me 'Ex-Gay' Movement Making Strides.” While I read important information in this article and agreed with some of Sanchez’s thoughts there was a total misunderstanding about the orthodox Christian viewpoint that Christians must abstain from sexual immorality. Also, there were errors in the article which are pointed out by Dr. Warren Throckmorton in his excellent critique, Southern Poverty Law Center article on ex-gay movement: Were the facts straight?.

And, there was no acknowledgement at all that the Christian Church has always held homosexual sex to be sin. Nor does Sanchez understand the Church’s teaching that all are sinners and only Jesus Christ can transform the sinner, not into a sinless person, but into one who does not habitually practice sin.

But my question here is how did hate and Christian beliefs about sin get so wrapped up together?

One Presbyterian pastor has decided to call Christian belief about homosexuality hate. Quoting from the 1978 General Assembly statement about homosexuality he calls the statements hate speech. The quotes include “…homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity” and “...Even where the homosexual orientation has not been consciously sought or chosen, it is neither a gift from God nor a state nor a condition like race; it is a result of our living in a fallen world.”

Yet, the difference between hate speech and Christian concerns over sinful behavior is as wide as the difference between darkness and light.

The racist desires to destroy another human; she insists that the other should no longer exist. But the Christian is called to care for each individual; to bring them to Christ, to disciple them in the Christian faith, to live together with them and before them a life of holiness.

Although the secular world may not understand that Jesus Christ came to give new life to the sinner that is the supreme good news.

Jesus describes both the hater and his own gift of life in one statement, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10: 10) It isn’t a new sexuality that is offered here but a transformed life that is united with the lord of the universe. As Augustine and others have explained it is the empty place within the repentant human heart filled with God’s presence.

And for the disciples of Jesus Christ, for the Church which follows the Lord, there is a calling to have mercy on those who are in bondage to the decadence in our society. Jude writes to the Church that they are to “have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.” (Jude 22-23)

The Apostle Paul reminds the Church that their past included such sins as thievery, drunkenness, homosexuality and swindling. But now, and here he lays out the whole of Christian transformation, by God’s transforming grace “they were washed” and “sanctified” and “justified” all in the name of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 6:9-11)

This means that they have been cleansed by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. They are continually being renewed in their relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit. They are holy with the righteousness of Christ and justified in the sight of God the Father.

So always the Church is called to be transformed and to proclaim the transforming power of Jesus Christ. And that is not hate.

Christians have always had to deal with the particular sins that are the most troublesome in their own time. Sexual sin is one of the great problems of post-modern western Christianity. But it is not a unique time. The Church has passed this way before, and society has looked on her with far greater contempt in other ages and places. The Church of Uganda celebrates its martyrs who died resisting a sexually deviant king.

Eusebius, the early Church historian, quoting Justin, wrote of a Roman woman who had practiced debauchery with both her husband and their servants. Eusebius writes how after becoming a Christian she attempted to lead her husband to Christ and away from their sinful life style. Finally she had to divorce him to protect her own sanctity. In the end the one who taught her the Christian faith, having been denounced by the lady’s ex-husband, was killed because he was a Christian.

Closer to contemporary times Dietrich Bonheoffer in his Ethics, in his confession for the Church, confessed that the church of his country and his time had failed to speak to the sexual problems plaguing his culture. He wrote:

“The Church confesses that she has found no word of advice and assistance in the face of the dissolution of all order in the relation between the sexes. She has found no strong and effective answer to the contempt for chastity and to the proclamation of sexual libertinism. All she has achieved has been an occasional expression of moral indignation. She has rendered herself guilty of the loss of the purity and soundness of youth. She has failed to proclaim with sufficient emphasis that our bodies belong to the Body of Christ.”(114)

Called to bigotry? No, but called to proclaim that Jesus Christ provides transforming life to the sinner. Called to proclaim that Christ’s death on the cross is sufficient for all our sins; that his resurrection brings new life. Called to confess our own sins and reach out to those suffering in bondage. Simply, called to be faithful.