Yesterday evening I had the privilege of taking part in a dialogue forum in Grand Rapids called got inclusion?. Here’s the idea behind the forum:
“Got Inclusion?” is an inspiring two-hour educational opportunity that invites the church to address one of the most controversial questions of our time. Participants will listen to the stories of local gay Christians and engage in dialogue about their place in the Christian community. Should the Church fully include gay members? If so, how can it do so? Everyone is welcome to share in this ecumenical event.
One of the panelist was a gay Catholic man in partnership, another was a former Protestant-turned-Cathoic lesbian who was not dating, then there was a straight lady who made a movement toward acceptance when she stepped into the stories of these”Other”, and the last panelist was a Catholic man who has same-sex attraction, but lives a celibate life because of his beliefs on God’s original design for sexuality and human nature.
I’ve written about this issue a few other times and the only reason I bring it up again is because I was so struck by the beauty of the body of Christ coming together with a marginalized, alienated group to dialogue. What’s more: most of that dialogue was between fellows brothers and sisters WITHIN the Church.
I facilitated a small group for discussion after the panelists shared their stories. In that group were men and women, gay and straight. More stories were shared. Stories of burden and alienation, and also stories of great joy and freedom. For once this issue was humanized, rather than caricatured, and we all benefited from a healthy dose of flesh and blood.
That evening I learned two things (or rather two thing were reinforced): the church needs to learn how to be a place of inclusion where people can share their stories; and once you learn a name, have embraced a body, and heard a story, it’s much more difficult to simply write off any issue (whether this or others) as unclean.
I walked away from last night pleased that a healthy, vibrant dialogue actually took place within the Church about such a hot, contentious issue. There was honesty (all around) and love (all around). And what was great was that in the end we rallied around Jesus and what it means to follow him, rather than agendas and identities. Because in the end, isn’t that what really matters?
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UPDATE: I fear that I have misrepresented the quoted commenter from my previous post. While I did not at all intend to do so, it seems like I made him out to be those who equate homosexuals with child molesters. What is especially unfortunate is I assumed that this person didn’t have any relational experience with gay friends. Sorry about that, Jason. I’d encourage people to read his though-provoking response. And note to other bloggers: email people to clarify their comment if you are going to quote them, especially if you are going to write a hyper-reactive post like mine!
I don’t want to keep beating this thing to death, so I’ll end this topic for a while with these words. My recent post on the need for a more inclusive response by the Church to the gay community garnered some insightful and interesting comments. Embedded in one of those comments was this oft repeated logic:
I totally agree with all who say that we should love and accept homosexuals but we’re certainly not supposed to tell them it’s ok to live in sin. We wouldn’t tell a child molester that it’s ok to molest children as long as you come to church on Sunday morning would we? We wouldn’t even allow them to entertain the thought!
This may go without saying, but let me say it just in case:
I don’t mean to rag on the person who wrote this comment (because he did agree that the Church’s response is a bit ridiculous), but to equate committed same-sex relationships (regardless of your hamarteological views) to child molestation is at best wholly uncharitable and worst completely crass and wretched.
I’ve heard this argument before and think it is totally stupid. Child molestation is heinously selfish and completely destroys the life of another human being. An adult uses a child for his or her own twisted desires with zero concern for the interests and well-being of the object to which his or her salivation is alleviated, and to continue equating this sort of act with committed same-sex relationships (and even the ‘acts’ of the gay community)
needs
to
stop!
I’m very familiar with the argument that certain Christians and groups use to try and equate gay relationships, irregardless of sexual activity, to something like adultery or molestation; it’s utter nonsense! My friends who happen to be gay (and Christian) are the farthest thing from either of these, love and follow Jesus and oftentimes model the love of Christ far better than me. And even those whom I know who aren’t necessarily Christians could/should hardly be compared in this fashion.
My guess is those who equate homosexuals with molesters have no relationships with these Others. How could they? It’s far easier to jingoisticly spray paint people with condemning graffiti when they are unnamed and at arms length than when you are in relationship with a name and a body and a story.
Here’s my advice for all you graffiti artists: step into the life of an Other; learn a name; embrace a body; grasp a story. Doing so will make it far harder to write-off the gay community as ‘unclean’ and may result in understanding, reconciliation, and even, perhaps, a friendship.
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Last evening I attended a GLBT event at a local university with a friend of mine. He thought it would be a good event for me to attend as I wrestle with how the Church should respond to and interact with the gay community.
At the event we watched a short film on gay and lesbian young adults/teenagers coming out to their parents and the subsequent parental response. It was interesting to see how the parents responded in agony, not necessarily for them but more so for their child. It was also interesting to see how the families faith and church experience played a huge part in how they responded: almost all of their responses were rooted in both their church’s teachings and also out of fear with how that church would respond; whether Morman, Southern Baptist, Hindu, or Jewish, all families confirmed an abnormal condemnation and subsequent segregation for this particular “sin.” In their minds, their child’s self-proclaimed identity (not even necessarily their behavior) was so wretched that the only response was grief, condemnation, and separation from the Church.
Afterwards, a panel discussed the short film and their own experiences with the gay community: two men were gay, one lady was a mother of a gay son and was the president of a local GLBT community organization, and another was a college student lesbian who was the head of the local GLBT college group. Most of the dialogue centered on the film, but there was a moment where we glimpsed the Church’s response to their community and THEM.
“I had to leave the faith…and I haven’t gone back since” was the response of one of the gay men on the panel in response to a comment on West Michigan’s cultural response to the gay community (which is largely, predomenantly Christian, well above the national average of self-proclaimed Christians and regular church goers).
What he really meant by “leaving the faith” was that he left his faith community. He was forced to leave the Church and segregate to other spheres of society to find community and love, entirely at the expense of encountering God and growth through the teachings of Jesus.
Folks,
I am
sick
and tired
and disgusted
by the Church’s response to the gay community, and particularly to individual people who are wrestling with and identify themselves as being gay.
That response amounts to nothing short of sexual segregation:
Gay people are forced out of the community of the Church and have little to no safe space to figure out who they are, while still worshiping God and living out their faith in Jesus in authentic community.
Rather than embracing people in all of their fullness (whether they agree with the pieces of that fulness or not), the Church rejects.
Rather than providing safe space to wrestle and worship, the Church alienates.
Rather than serve and love this community, the Church defends and condemns.
So the only recourse for gay people (whether Christian or not) to find community is at 1) gay bars and 2) gay clubs, completely divorced from God-encountering space and Jesus’ transformational community of love.
It is time for the Church to rethink its table fellowship.
Rethink
and
repent.
Now is the time for Church Inc. to repent for closing and locking the doors to God’s community, fiercely guarding Jesus’ table, and arrogantly deciding who is in and who is out.
Instead may Jesus’ Building offer safe space for ALL who are weary and burdened down with life to find rest and shelter. May the Flock offer true community and human acceptance for those who are alienated. And may the Branch truly provide the life giving sustenance to all people, irregardless of who people are, but especially the gay community.
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Did anyone celebrate “Buy Nothing Day”? I love this idea, especially since I loath the fact that USA Inc. (read: corporate America) uses baby Jesus for its own powerful, consumeristic, economic ends. And the Church goes along with it!
I’ve always found it incredibly ironic when people on the right end of the Christian spectrum scream and whine when USA Inc. takes the “Christ out of Christmas” when USA Inc. uses Christmas to rake in MILLIONS. Why aren’t we up in arms that Best Buy sells TV’s in the name of a historic celebration of the birth of the Savior of the World? Crazy and Ironic!
Anyway, personally I am torn, because I want an iPod Touch from my parents 
But also because this is a time when my family and I DO celebrate the invasion of God to earth in Jesus and give gifts to each other out of love. We don’t go all out for birthdays and Christmas is that one time when we gather together to love each other through gift giving…or maybe I’m just making excuses to justify receiving, opening, and playing with a new iPod Touch.
Irony number two: “Buy Nothing Day” is NOT a Church movement to reclaim Christmas for its historic purpose, the celebration of the God-with-us-God invasion. Nope. It’s promoted by a “liberal” anti-consumerist organization called Adbusters. I wrote about them in appreciation before and think this is a fantastic opportunity to embrace and partner with the Other in an effort to wrestle the Christmas from Walmart and the like.
While I love this time of year and the opportunity to spend time with my family and love them through gifts, I also wish the Church would demand Christmas back from USA Inc. What’s more, it seems like the Other is doing a better job of that than we are. Go figure…
Technorati Tags: adbusters, consumerism, buy nothing day, emerging church, christianity ,
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This is an essay I wrote for my Biblical Hermeneutics class. We were assigned the task of choosing a Gospel pericope (story/passage) and were suppose to describe and analyze it. I thought it was a pretty good read, so I thought I would post it here. I must warn you, it is long (3500 words, 10 pages double-spaced!), but I think it’s a good analysis of exorcism, Jesus and the disciple’s ministry regarding this practice, the ministry of the Other exorcist, and how we should respond in embrace and partnership with modern day “exorcists.” I hope it challenges you to think more broadly about the Kingdom, who is in and out, and who can and is taking part in its work. (PS-This version is absent about 50 footnotes…if you want the original version, go here.)
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, an attitude of exclusivism and exclusion has plagued the Church as various strains within Christianity seem quick to border Jesus in from the Outsider, while attacking and alienating the “Other” with little consideration to embrace and partner with them. What is worse, those walling Jesus in the fastest seem to be more content to live out the American Dream— complete with $93 million church facilities, Christian bookstores, and Purpose-Driven, Live-Your-Best-Life-Now easy listening messages—than the Way of Jesus, even while the Other seems to do a better job at “being Jesus” than the Church; those whom the Church writes off as outside the boundaries of Jesus’ group oftentimes are doing what He would do more often, passionately, and better than His very disciples, a modern-day phenomenon that mirrors an oft-overlooked Gospel pericope found in the Book of Mark.
In Mark 9:38-41, Jesus confronts this same exclusive “Us” vs. “Them” spirit in His disciples. Rather than applauding His their efforts to prevent a non-disciple from exorcising in His name, Jesus rebukes them for creating borders around His Kingdom and having a narrow concept of who is involved in it’s work. But though this pericope has great implications for the modern church as it relates to the Other, a survey of scholarship shows a lack of concern for this passage. While commentaries do handle this text and provide insight, a search on ATLAReligion resulted in only two articles for this pericope. Despite sparse scholarship material, though, I aim to describe and analyze Jesus’ instructions in Mark regarding the ministry of a non-disciple and the response of the disciples’ to that non-disciple. Using the passages immediate context and connecting synoptic material, I expect Jesus’ subversive teachings on who is in and out to establish a robust ethic for modern readers on the art of embracing and partnering with the Other for the good of Jesus’ Kingdom and the world.
Technorati Tags: exorcism, jesus, the other, the book of mark
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