Oh, folks…we’ve gotta wake up before it’s too late. We’ve been so busy pointing fingers at other people, we’ve been blinded to our own problems. Think for a minute of the things that have been done in the Name of God: Crusades, Slavery, policies supporting America’s Manifest Destiny, and the Nazi Holocaust to name a few. We’ve carried on the war that was never declared by the One we claim to speak for. He has been used to justify economic policies, political agendas, racism, greed.
Demonization has been a process of attributing society’s ills to the “homsexuals, deviants, and perverts.” Accusations have sprung up regarding the “gay agenda” which usurps our Judeo-Christian way of life. They are here to break up our families, and adopt all orphaned children because they’re perverts and have to make more gay people (Ironically, the one of the more mainline denominations with rampant clergy sexual abuses cases reports that in the last 20 years there have been over 10,000 incidents. The scary things is…those were reported, not actual.
Dehumanization – The church has continually alienated LGBT people by disregarding and dismissing their emotional needs. I can still remember the mounting AIDS scare of the early 1980’s. AIDS was touted as the new gay cancer or God’s punishment for vile and dispicable behavior. We saw the rise of mighty political lobbyists who capitalized on homophobic tendancies in everyday citizens. Later, we saw LGBT blamed for Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Even more notoriously were our “brothers and sisters” picketing at the funerals of Matthew Shephard, Virginia Tech/Northern Illinois University shooting victims, and our military personel.
Detoxification – We have attempted to keep our military LGBT-free, fire gays from teaching positions and other places of employment, prohibiting same-sex adoptions/marriages/unions, and the list goes on.
The Church has no room to talk and needs to focus more attention on cleaning up its own house first. Holy Matrimony I ask? Why is it that among evangelicals, 52% marriages still end up in divorce. I suggest that we add to the Sanctity of Marriage Act that there be a clause that makes it illegal for evangelicals to get divorced. Do I need to remind people of the sex scandals of the 1980’s straight through today?
Again I refer to a powerful story taking place in Matthew 25 as Christ separates those who will receive their eternal reward versus those who will be separated from God. Interestingly, in this depiction, He doesn’t separated the righteous from the wicked, but the obedient from the lazy. Verse 45 really sticks out to me: “And he will answer, ‘I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.” The word “least” means “ignored” or “overlooked.” This includes so many people, but in regards to this blog, the Church has overlooked and ignored the LGBT community.
Again, this is a wake up call to stop alienating those whom Christ not only called us to minister to, but those whom He loves passionately. It’s a challenge to which I’m pleading with you to respond.
