Perhaps you've heard of the "Nashville Statement" this week. It is a series of beliefs laid out by a group of extreme evangelical Christian leaders, on the subject of human sexuality. If you haven't seen it, look it up and read the articles. They include distinct anti-LGBTQ statements that for some, have been received as hateful and hurtful.
I bring it up only to offer this counter narrative: LGBTQIA friends, the church doesn't hate you. The church doesn't wish you harm. When God spun the universe into existence, it was all deemed good - everything in it. in the Gospel of John we hear perhaps the most famous line from scripture, "For God so loved the world..." You've been made good, and God loves you. So do I and many, many other clergy and church leaders.
The Nashville Statement and manifestos like it do not stand in line with the narrative of God's love for humanity found in the scriptures, or the loving compassion exemplified by the Way of Jesus.
Christian friends, if we are to agree that God created and called the creation good, and if we are to hear the evangelist proclaim that God so loved the world, then who are any of us to hate the creation or any of the created? Might I suggest that in doing so, we will have abandoned the very nature of our being and the calling of God that we proclaim?
Pray our hearts will soften in compassion for our neighbors, and that our righteous indignation will be fueled against the source of all suffering: fear.
"For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." 2 Tim. 1:7 (NRSV)
I bring it up only to offer this counter narrative: LGBTQIA friends, the church doesn't hate you. The church doesn't wish you harm. When God spun the universe into existence, it was all deemed good - everything in it. in the Gospel of John we hear perhaps the most famous line from scripture, "For God so loved the world..." You've been made good, and God loves you. So do I and many, many other clergy and church leaders.
The Nashville Statement and manifestos like it do not stand in line with the narrative of God's love for humanity found in the scriptures, or the loving compassion exemplified by the Way of Jesus.
Christian friends, if we are to agree that God created and called the creation good, and if we are to hear the evangelist proclaim that God so loved the world, then who are any of us to hate the creation or any of the created? Might I suggest that in doing so, we will have abandoned the very nature of our being and the calling of God that we proclaim?
Pray our hearts will soften in compassion for our neighbors, and that our righteous indignation will be fueled against the source of all suffering: fear.
"For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." 2 Tim. 1:7 (NRSV)
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