A Call to Christian Leaders

I have spent much of this afternoon reading through various blog posts about the recent gay suicides that just occurred. There is much consensus that church leaders need to do something to help stop the hurtful bullying that is directed toward homosexuals. Some of the blogs (e.g. Religious Gays tell Teens, "It Gets Better") explain how some church leaders are doing their part in speaking words of encouragement to the gay community. I have discussed in many of my past blogs how Christians are at least partly (I would say much) to blame for the anti-gay attitude that is prominent in the world today. This has much to do with explicit anti-gay treatment of church leaders (which I define loosely enough to include anyone who represents the Church and knows better than to act in such judgmental ways). One of my readers explained to me how 2 of her women co-workers consistently tell a lesbian coworker that she is going to hell. One of the things I am going to continue to explore in this blog and am writing about in my book is where this behavior and attitude came from. What is important for this post is that the only people Jesus ever said were going to go to hell were the religious leaders of his day who were treating people the way those 2 women are treating their lesbian co-worker. The religious leaders of Jesus' day were constantly going around and judging people for their sinful behavior. Jesus purposed to put to a stop to that, saying things like, "do not judge lest you want to be judged," "do not attempt to take the splinter out of your brother's eye before you have first taken the log out of your own eye," and why he told the parable of the good Samaritan. The parable was intended to show that we are to love all people, regardless of whether we agree with their beliefs (The Jews and the Samaritans were notorious enemies because of opposing religious beliefs). Jesus was saying that it does not matter if the person laying on the ground is someone whom you disagree with; you pick him up, you place him on your horse, and you get him help, meeting his need. In this parable, Jesus is speaking to a crowd of Jews who hate Samaritans. By making the hated Samaritan the hero of the story, Jesus is saying that the Samaritan is more worthy of the love of God than the priest and the Levite in the story. Place today's Church leaders in the story as the Levite and the priest and place a gay man in the story as the Samaritan, and we can understand the story as it relates to us today. (Who says the bible is not relevant anymore). Dr. Janet Edwards talks about the Good Samaritan parable in her blog Gay Teen Suicides: People of Faith, Step up for our Youth. In it she rightly calls many of today's church leaders the priest and Levite from the parable that step around and avoid the man laying on the road. And I think this is the other problem.

The first problem is Church leaders speaking out explicitly against homosexuals. The second problem is that the Church leaders who are for showing love and compassion to the glbt (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) community are complicit because they avoid the issue and remain silent. They do not speak out against the gay lifestyle, but they do nothing to speak out against the anti-gay rhetoric of the church. Many Church leaders choose to remain silent because they do not want to offend anyone in their church. But by remaining silent, they are offending the glbt community and remain accomplices in the offenses of the Church leaders who speak out loudly against the gay population. Whenever I see a situation in which people are afraid to speak out against an issue, I think how between President Andrew Jackson and President Abraham Lincoln, there was not a single two term president. Andrew Jackson served from 1829 to 1837 and there were eight single term presidents until Lincoln was elected in 1860 and elected again for a second term in 1860. The reason no president won a second term between these two presidents was because not one of them had the courage to stand up against slavery. It was not until Abraham Lincoln came onto the scene that someone spoke out boldly against slavery. We need church leaders to be bold today and to stand up with a loud voice and decry the bullying that is being directed at the gay community. We need church leaders today who have the character and integrity to stand up for what is right and preach the gospel of love for our neighbor that Jesus preached, which means preaching love to all people, regardless of beliefs, background or sexual orientation. Church leaders need to do what Rabbi Jason Miller writes about in his blog and Preach Tolerance, Compassion Toward LGBT Community.

Here is my call to Church leaders around the country; I'm asking you to do 3 things. Stand up as representatives of the church and apologize on behalf of the Church for failing the gay community and being complicit in the bullying of the GBLT community that led to the suicides a month ago and to countless other suicides. Bishop Gene Robinson, in his blog How Religion is Killing our Most Vulnerable Youth, says in an extremely powerful way, These bullying behaviors would not exist without the undergirding and the patina of respect provided by religious fervor against LGBT people. It's time for "tolerant" religious people to acknowledge the straight line between the official anti-gay theologies of their denominations and the deaths of these young people. Secondly, reach out to the gay community and invite them into your churches, allowing them to be a part of your church community; giving them an environment of love and care that will foster much needed healing in their lives. Finally, as much as you can, educate the your churches and the public about the fact that Jesus never preached a message of hate or intolerance towards sinner, but that he never showed anything less than the greatest love for all people, regardless of whether they followed the letter of the law or not. As a matter of fact, the people Jesus showed the most love towards were the greatest sinners in the community. He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, those considered the most unholy by the religious leaders. So as one Church leader to others, I am calling to you, come forward and do these three things. It will make for a more Christ-centered nation.
God bless,
Brandon

For further resources, go to the following blog which I was not able to cite in the post: Christians and Bullying: Standing with Gays and Lesbians and The Christian Call to Civility.