Insulated From Human Stories

We as people, and yes we as Christians, tend to view the human experience in overarching and generalized terms, usually seeing humans in vast nationalistic expanses of genders, ages, and of course socio-economic categories. This lends such insulated self righteousness and provides such an emotional buffer zone within which we can assess, judge, and pronounce a pristine and authoritative inventory on all the collective categories. And this continuum between human lives and their spiritual standing ministers most and best to ourselves. It is painless and usually is spoken through cold and uncompassionate lips that operate at the behest of cold hearts transplanted from the stereotypical Pharisee. We enjoy being insulated from the boundless stories of individual human stories of struggle, pain, and incredible suffering. To know Bill or Janet is far more dangerous and emotionally vulnerable than just saying “they” at an impersonal distance.

There are many situations in which people suffer. Relationships, physical, emotional, dignity, and many, many other definitions describe an existence where human beings suffer. I would like to deal with a specific area of emotional suffering that is happening in epic proportions, and is not only hiding within unseen walls of fear and shame and confusion, it is many times being exacerbated and even celebrated by those of us who bear the Name of the most perfect expression of compassion ever offered by the Creator God Himself. And in the midst of immeasurable suffering and pain, it has become ever so comfortably dispassionate to address these specific stories of human pain in antiseptic terms which corral the individuals and verbally focus them in neat and sweeping collective nouns. And in those tethered to those linguistic umbrellas, we find not only a buffered existence, but we can keep these “people groups” separated from any responsibility laden compassion.

These are the men and women we now call the gay community, as if they are not an embedded and accepted part of the overall community of human beings. And one benefit of having collective nouns and monikers about people is to see them as one interconnected teeming mass who are emulsified into one definable mindset and existence, when in fact, there are millions of individual stories that sometimes bear no similarity to each other save in the aspect of sexual attraction. But it is so much easier to see them as a whole so we can deal with them with one simplistic answer which usually is constructed to absolve us from the preponderance of responsibility as well as remove the discomfort that usually accompanies genuine compassion.

There is much more solace to be found in saying “them” rather than Janet or Bill. But many families that have safely seen the gays as “them” have one morning awakened to greet them as “son” or “daughter”. The word "quandary" is deeply insufficient to describe what a family feels who experience the revelation of one of “them” emerge in the midst of the sanctity of their own set of loved ones. And when that scenario is further refined to include followers and believers in Jesus Christ, well, the situation has become untenable and presents no easy course correction.

I have done some research lately, and I have listened to and watched some deeply painful stories from families that have gone through this exact situation, and I’ve listened to parents and gay offspring alike share what I have never felt myself. And in the very core of this unfolding story is the confusion that grips a Christian home that is faced with this reality. I have listened as a gay young man in his early twenties relates the disgust he felt about himself as he heard his father speak disparagingly and carelessly about gay people before he knew his own son was struggling. And after ten long years, even from the age of seven, and after making many deals with God in hopes of deliverance, this young man was faced with having to tell his parents of his inward attractions. I am sure that when a daughter must tell her parents of a premarital pregnancy she must be devastated, but many times the child that is born is still considered a blessing. But of what benefit can a gay young man expect when he informs his parents that he has become their deepest fears?

And I watched as a young man confessed that he had packed his suitcase, fully embracing the possibility that his evangelical parents would demand he leave the house. I cannot imagine such a burden, and many times these parents do turn their back on their son or daughter because of shame, disgust, disappointment, and the reservoir of teaching they have had about the hatred and wrath of God on gay people. The confused emotions of the parents cannot be overlooked as well. Many parents say they would rather have their child be killed in a car accident than become a practicing gay person. And then their Christianity lies shattered before their very eyes, whatever happened to the “bring up a child” principle?

Most times the gay child has immense internal struggles that last for years before he ever shares this most painfully vulnerable truth about himself. Weeping alone, feelings of suicide, self loathing, parental disappointment, and just a pervasive depression about themselves and their future is the inward lifestyle they live. And quietly they also process the harsh and caustic attitudes and verbiage coming from family and friends about others who have the same attractions. And what must be the depth of that depression that doesn’t stem from something you have done, but who you are? Many succumb to suicide which many times reinforces the general societal assertion that the gay lifestyle, if chosen, can have many adverse affects. So even worse than talking past each other, there isn’t much dialogue of any kind.

Now we can continue to place an uniformed template upon these human beings, or we can reach out with compassion and understanding without surrendering any basic Biblical teachings but with a journey to become a pliable conduit through which flows the mystery of the Holy Spirit’s redemptive mission. I know, we have become quite accustomed to doctrinal hygiene which has protected us from any messy excursions into unknown territory that may well be criticized by those who remain entrenched. And if we leave the safety of doctrinal surety we might be accused of consorting with and condoning sin. Remember, we have a forerunner who experienced that same accusation against Himself and His mission.

If you believe that same sex attraction is a choice and is a slave to the wills of all the men and women who have them, then you may return to your vantage point as you watch Columbus load up the Santa Maria for his long and uncharted journey. But if you are sophisticated and honest enough to see that many are born with this phenomenon, then you must ask yourself some uncomfortable practical questions about how expansive and sociologically penetrating is the redemption of Jesus Christ. How can the power of God’s love for sinners and his judgment of sin be reconciled at the cross and within the blood stained signature that is redemption incarnate? Are these sinners that are so often myopically defined by their sexual attraction a part of John 3:16’s world or are they out of the scope of redemption until they shed that one sin so all the others can be forgiven?

Every heterosexual boy is born with a sexual attraction for unholy objects of many and varied natures. From the old time National Geographic pictures of African natives, to his new young teacher. Cousins, older sisters, next door neighbors, bra models in the Sears catalogue, classmates, and on and on pass the long, lifetime parade of objects to which the inherent sinful attractions are drawn and many times acted upon privately and sometimes publicly in later years. Which men among us would deny we have these attractions that have been alive and well most times, and lurking in other times? Let us step forward and admit publicly that we did not choose these attractions, we were born with them. They are not in line with God’s Word and Jesus even said we have practiced them even if only by thought.

These unrighteous heterosexual attractions are a part of the fallen nature that pervades all humanity, and they are every bit as wrong as other sexual attractions. The issue is not the righteousness of these attractions, it is can those who have them find redemption? And the paradox about opposite sex attractions is that they can be righteously satisfied within the context of marriage, but imagine the same strong and constant same sex desires, accompanied by no attraction for the opposite sex, and with no righteous way to satisfy that basic desire. This is the struggle about which most of us know nothing, and neither do we wish to know the struggle or the one who battles himself constantly about the truth of who he is. This is not a search for Biblical accommodation, this is a search for redemption.

The church has insulated itself from the heartache of the individual and in fact there are more seminars about financial suffering as compared to gay pain and struggles. We have become very adept at using some of the more militant wings of the gay agenda to provide a reason to reject the entire unknown mass of humanity we call gay. How many Christians know and interact with a gay person, and how many would desire such a privilege? How many churches have a open ministry to the gay community around them? How many churches actively seek gay people to come to their church? And how many churches would be very uncomfortable with a dozen gay people having faithful attendance on Sunday mornings, regardless of how and when they made any sort of outward change?

Jesus allowed, welcomed, and even chose Judas to follow him and be a part, even an usher, in every service at which the Master spoke. For over three years Judas did not change, and Jesus knew it and continued to love him and his invitation as one of the twelve was intact. Jesus did not condone the sins of Judas or Peter, but He seemed to be uncomfortably inclusive and in the end, it was Judas who refused Christ, not Christ refusing Judas. How can we who claim to be the organic and living body of that same Jesus do any less? But if we extend love and redemption to gay sinners without extracting something from them either first or at least at certain intervals, we will be maligned in the evangelical community. We will be questioned about our doctrine. We will be judged about our compromise. And in fact, we will be absolutely crucified.

Hmm...that may be just what we need.