Welcoming or Tolerating?
November 28, 2009 by Jim Johnson
“We welcome homosexuals.”
“We can’t condone homosexual behavior.”
How many churches do you know that make both of those statements?
I was reminded of that reading a story in the Christian Post where a Lutheran pastor in Minnesota tried to get his church to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after the denomination voted to allow ordination of non-celebate homosexual pastors. When the congregation voted on and rejected that idea, he resigned and started a new church with people leaving his old one. The pastor used both of the opening phrases to describe his old church.
Seriously, if we were “welcomed” into a church but told that our “behavior” of having sex with each other was considered sinful, I don’t think we would feel very welcome. Tolerated, maybe, but certainly not welcome. Who wouldn’t feel the same way? Sadly, that concept continues to be a mystery to many mainline churches who have to tried to convince people (and perhaps their own congregations) that allowing people in the door without swift and direct condemnation is a sufficient display of Jesus’ love.
Isn’t this just one tiny step better than the worn out “Hate the sin, love the sinner” approach some of the more fundamentalist churches take, especially when the hate part is so often directed at the aforementioned sinners.
Remember, the only people Jesus cast out and was sharply critical of were the religious types, the ones who administered the Law that had grown so it was impossible for anyone to be in total compliance. He loved sinner of all types, but the religious leaders really got on his nerves, mainly because their rules put obstacles between people and His Father. Jesus came down to earth and suffered on the cross to give us a path to the Father, not to keep “certain types” away and out of fellowship with Him.
Jesus doesn’t tolerate sinners, He loves them. Perhaps our churches should put more effort into doing the same.
More from Jim and Brenda Johnson at: Straight, Not Narrow!
“We welcome homosexuals.”
“We can’t condone homosexual behavior.”
What is so baffling to me is that individuals and churches who hold to this belief do not address other areas of human behavior that their members are guilty of like adultrey, lying, stealing, using God’s name in vain, being ” christian” on sundays but not the rest of the week. There are countless more, but isn’t funny how none of these issues are ever addressed by the church? One more thing who determines what sin is? Man or God? God does and if homosexuality is a sin (it isn’t) isn’t that God’s place to judge? Those who identify as Christian would be wise to follow Jesus’s example and love and accept everyone and not judge or condemn anyone.
I would love the opportunity to pick apart the personal lives of those who oppose equality for LGBT’s. I’m sure it’d be an eye opening experience!
“We welcome homosexuals.”
“We can’t condone homosexual behavior.”
How many churches do you know that make both of those statements?
I’ve never come across a church that DOESN’T use that line.
I would gladly join you in picking apart the lives of those who fight gay rights! The more “moral” these people act, the more I question just how “moral” they really are.
James, my grandfather said I was an abomination and anathema. What I would have given to have had the knowledge that he sired a child out of wedlock with another woman. He used to beat me over the head with a bible. The last time he spoke to me before his death, he said “You know you’re going to hell dont ya”. I said “Guess I will see you there, asshole”. Well, if I had known he was a confirmed adulterer, that would have been some kind of ammunition to his bullshit about my being gay. This is what the right wing religionists do. They are all liars and thieves (yes, using church money to finance poitical parties is theft, you should have to pay taxes on that kind of donation).
My father and his wife are the biggest KKKonservatives you could ever have the “pleasure” of meeting.
It’s probably a good thing that they never really caught on to me having a girlfriend in my past, tolerating their racism was bad enough. Of course for all the moral BS that comes with the KKKonservative party, I find it interesting that he was still married to my mother at the time he was screwing around with his secretary.
Aren’t these people amazing?