Consider two people:
1) Allen is gay and is in a monogamous relationship with a man.
2) Brad married a woman at 24. He does very well for himself over the years, and after building a fortune and a family he divorces his wife at 40 and marries a woman who is 24.
Both men are guilty of breaking from God’s plan for marriage and his intent for human sexuality. But Brad is also guilty of inflicting emotional damage to his kids, hurting his wife, breaking his oath oath to God to remain true to her, and forcing her to choose between late-life marriage and solitude. It’s also worth noting what temptation the men faced. Allen is only attracted to men, so obedience to God might well have meant a life of loneliness. Brad faced no such choice, because he already had a mate. Allen has sinned to avoid a life of being single and frustrated. Brad has sinned and left a trail of emotional damage in his wake so that he could bang a girl with a skinny butt.
Yet where do Christians stand on these sins? Allen’s sin is usually viewed as far worse. “Perverted.” “Deviant.” I’ve sat through many Sunday sermons where the pastor took a few minutes to decry the rampant homosexuality in our society and how it will lead to God’s judgment. Christians go so far as to support making it illegal for Allen to marry. Some would make it illegal for him to have gay sex at all. But Brad sort of gets a pass. No Christian I’ve ever encountered has supported outlawing divorce. Most protestant churches allow divorced & remarried men to attend, and many even allow them to hold positions of authority.
Why is this? Why is one crime seen as a horrific offense against God so dire that it shouldn’t be allowed, and another offense – which actually hurts people – is seen as something so minor that it shouldn’t prevent you from having authority within the church?
This isn’t a hypothetical question. I’m really curious as to why these sins are weighted this way.
It’s one thing to consider homosexuality a sin, it is entirely another to consider outlawing the practice of homosexuality. Homosexual individuals have just as much a right to behave in non-coercive ways as heterosexuals. And why? Because they are human beings.
Christians, and in particular evangelical Christians, have a tendency to elevate the status of private sins as the pinnacle of evil while condoning public injustice and aggression in the name of meta-goals such as “preserving the family.” It is ironic that often enough their actions have the unintended consequences of destroying families rather than accomplishing that meta-goal at all.
Christians say, “hate the sin, love the sinner” but rarely practice the principle. Instead, they frequently look down upon and ostracize those they don’t like. Jesus could touch a leper, but some Christians can’t even be in the same room with a homosexual. On the other hand, some Christians need to learn to hate the sin in their own lives a whole lot more.
We all are living out a life of transformation, may our minds be renewed by the One who loves all and is constantly seeking us. May we take that example for ourselves as well.
It is also quite helpful when trying to ignore your own personal sin to have a group to demonize…
Very interesting argument, but let’s take this scenario a little farther. Allen goes on to have a relationship with another man and contracts HIV, but doesn’t know about it for 10 years. He goes on to have other relationships, all of which end with broken hearts, causing emotional damage there, and unknowingly passing along HIV along the way, as do the rest of his former partners. Another 10 years down the road, it’s now the 90′s, and thanks to bisexual partners, the disease has now been spread to straight people as well, but they won’t know about it for years, maybe until after they have children. Now how much damage has Allen caused? This also is not a hypothetical situation.
I agree with you that the church has become far too soft on divorce. It’s become so common that we’ve become calloused to it, like the frog in the kettle. I also agree that we tend to view homosexuality as worse than our own sin. But don’t worry, soon enough we’ll become calloused to that, too, and pretty soon it won’t bother us so much, and the next thing you know we’ll have not only divorced church leaders, but gay leaders in the churches…oh, wait, that already happened.
Do you see what’s happening here? I completely understand the empathy I feel from your article, but let’s look at the bigger picture. This is not merely an issue of gay versus Christian, this is an issue of our callousedness to sin. Right now homosexuality is just the latest frontier in Satan’s push for lower standards and hardened hearts. In another 10-20 years, are you going to be writing an article like this on pediphiles, or whatever kind of sin is left after this?
The issue is not that we need to be softer on homosexuality, it’s that we need to return to God’s standards on ALL issues.
Two hikers were in the woods when they were spotted by a bear. The bear chased them up a tree. One hiker began to swap his boots for running shoes. His friend said “You can’t outrun a bear!” His friend said “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you!” The fact remains that however society ranks sin, God sees only sin. Both of these men are children of God. Both should be welcomed in the church. Neither should be candidates for the priesthood given that both of their lives are out of compliance with what we know (to the best of our ability) to be the will of God. Despite what we may believe – we cannot outrun our sin by convincing others that their sin is worse. The bear will finish one hiker and take off after the other eventually.