Welcome back to Part 15 of A History of Incompatibility. In this series, we explore the development of Christian beliefs around human sexuality, particularly as it relates to present church schisms over LGBTQ inclusion. If you are just now joining the story, I recommend going back and starting at Part 1. We’re coming in hot this week, kids, so brace yourselves!
Defining terms:
In this series, “affirming” refers to theologies that embraces sexual and gender diversity and seek to create pathways for holiness that allow for same-sex marriage, transgender expression, and the leadership and ordination of LGBTQ people in the church.
“Unaffirming” refers to any theologies that deny LGBTQ expression, requiring LGBTQ people to perform as straight or cisgender in order to be accepted into the kingdom of God.
We are currently exploring a Wesleyan theology big enough to affirm the possibility that God blesses LGBTQ people as they are. This series assumes the reality that God already has blessed, affirmed, included, saved, and called many people in the queer community without requiring them to become heteronormative (i.e. ‘straight’). Gay and trans Christians are already here. The vast majority of religious queer people thrive in affirming theologies, and perish (spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically) in unaffirming theologies. I am not here to convince you of these realities, because if you don’t want to see it you won’t.
But if you are willing to see it, my hope is that you would open your heart, your mind, and your community to affirming those whom God has already affirmed.
As a United Methodist youth pastor and a webcomic artist, my entire world is translating the Gospel to people for whom the Gospel has become too familiar or too marred with baggage. As I imagined how to illustrate the theology in today’s comic, I wanted a unique visual to capture the imagination when talking about God putting on flesh and dwelling among us. So I drew the symbol of infinity but as a double helix: eternity clothing itself in perishable DNA. There is a very ancient phrase in Christian orthodoxy, “God became man that man might become God,” or put less boldly, “He became what we are that we might become what he is” (Athanasius, 296-373 AD). The Gospel isn’t just that Christ gets us to heaven: it’s that Jesus uniquely creates the possibility for humans to put on the mind/attitude of Christ, to grow in true love every day. The incarnation (God becoming human) is the ultimate revelation that God is for us all, that God loves us all, that God’s heart is for the wholeness and blessing of everyone. The heart “strangely warmed” by God delights in growing in loving God and loving others more and more every day.
Today, and in the upcoming pages, I am informed by John Wesley’s 1739 sermon, Free Grace. I will work to be less polemical than Wesley was, but I think his arguments against the harm caused by Calvinism greatly inform the present conversations around the harm caused by unaffirming theologies. Specifically, Wesley argued against the concept of double predestination: that God infallibly saves some and damns the rest of humanity regardless of anything we do or believe in this life. Wesley denounced the Calvinist claim of Limited Atonement, that Christ only died for those who are saved, and nobody else stands a chance. Wesley argued that no matter how nice you made it sound, how much you distanced yourself from the Calvinist extremists, if you believed in Calvinist predestination, you invariably affirmed the flip side: God hates and damns most of humanity and they can do nothing to fix that.
Maybe you find yourself unaffirming, but you do not wish to be associated with extremists. You would NEVER protest a funeral with Westboro Baptist waving your “GOD HATES F-GS” billboard. Then I ask you to start coming to terms with certain realities: Westboro Baptists make plain and unashamed what other unaffirming theologies cover up with politeness.
The most common refrain I get is something to the effect of “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” The argument goes: we’re not saying God hates gay people, we’re saying God hates their practices. Therefore, God hates same-sex relationships. God hates when transgender people get surgery or hormones to alter their bodies. Arguments and worldviews are built around this: God creates everyone straight, it’s the devil (or the gay agenda?) who deceives people into believing they are gay or trans.
If this is your worldview, you may feel like the young man and woman in this series, curious as to why gay people think you hate them, when all you’re doing is upholding scripture and tradition. Perhaps it is because it becomes difficult to continue to uphold an unaffirming worldview if you pay even a little bit of attention to the lived experience of nearly every LGBTQ person who wants to follow Christ. You may not be Westboro Baptist church, but for the many, MANY closeted Christians in your community, your fake “all are welcome, but don’t say gay” does far more damage.
John Wesley fiercely argued that God’s grace is free for all and free in all. He adamantly opposed any theology that presumed God to hate anyone. While he was arguing in the context of the Calvinism of his day, I will argue that unaffirming theologies today universally imply that saving grace is not freely available to LGBTQ people. Unlike their straight brothers and sisters, who must simply “confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord'” to be saved (Rom 10:9), LGBTQ people are expected to be fully sanctified (either denounce who they are or commit to lifelong celibacy) from the get-go. Though the early church did not require Gentile believers to become Jewish in order to be Christian, the modern church requires LGBTQ believers to become straight in order to be Christian. And even when LGBTQ Christians play your game, even when they are celibate, unaffirming theologies continue to refuse them a place at the table. Everyone knows the music minister is gay, but the moment he admits it, he can no longer be in leadership, regardless of the fact that he has never had sex with a man. Because for most unaffirming Christians, it’s not just the practice. It’s the fact that you’re even tempted to “practice.” Can you really believe in Jesus if Jesus hasn’t saved you from that temptation? Oh, you’ve cried yourself to sleep every night for 20 years praying for God to make you straight, but it’s never worked? You must not be a real Christian like me. Maybe God’s grace isn’t enough for you after all.
You don’t ever have to say it like that. Actions speak louder than words, and our true theology always comes out in the way we treat others.