Mocking Ourselves: Homosexuality and Christian Faith

Back in college, when I was still determined to proselytize the whole world, I partook in a "spring-break campaign" as was common at my school. These were basically evangelistic trips around the country designed to shield students at our school from the worldly temptations which other college kids partook in over spring break. For financial reasons I had never joined a trip, until my senior year when a last minute opportunity arose to accompany some of my closest friends to shed light on the Gentiles of Fresno and San Francisco, California.

I don't want to speak totally pejoratively of such trips, as good things certainly came from them. As a general rule they were equally as focused on 'doing good for the Kingdom's sake' as they were on driving people into the baptistery. Often the good that was done was clumsy and inspired by mixed motives, but I don't feel that those acts were invalidated as such.

For the trip that I was on, the two days we spent in San Francisco were by far the highlight. One day was our fun day, and we spent it trying to take in as many tourist attractions as possible. The other day we spent in the Castro district.



At the time we barely knew anything about the area other than it was home to many homosexuals, and that as such many fundamentalist Christians made it their target to go a preach their message of hate and vindictiveness. Looking back, I can say that at the time we didn't know much, but we knew that this was not right. So we spent a day passing out bottles of water, hoping to make up (ever so slightly) for the hostility that other Christians displayed. In hindsight I think our hearts were in the right place, even if we were a little naive on the whole.



I write about this, because last month I had the privilege to watch the movie Milk, a movie that is essentially about the events that made the Castro what it is. It was amusing and agonizing to watch this film, because of what I had formerly believed and because of how ignorant my friends and I had been when we visited. The movie is about Harvey Milk who was the first open homosexual to be elected to public office. Milk was one of the many who helped to transform the Castro into a mecca for homosexuals, and the movie, to a large degree, portrays this period. I'll end my synopsis with that, and recommend highly for everyone to go and see it. Sean Penn does a phenomenal job, and further elevates himself on my already short list of actors whose names I consider worth remembering.

I want to explain my not so profound realization, which nonetheless hit me extremely hard as someone who has been and at some level continues to be a Christian. The movie shows that those who moved to the Castro district did so not out of some perverse desire, but genuinely because of violent persecution. Up until recently, little attention was given on any level of media to the fact that homosexuals were/are being killed for their lifestyle. The movie portrays this quite compellingly. Even within the Castro district men were being beaten to death! So, what does this say for other areas of the country?

The one thing I am convinced that is uniquely powerful within the Christian faith is the advocacy of the marginal. Even over and above compassion, the message of our faith is that there is none so small, nor so "dirty", that God does not stand for him. For him. FOR him!! If this is not true then the "gospel", as we call it, is complete and utter shit.

The question then becomes not "Can we tolerate homosexuals as Christians?", but instead "Does our faith mean anything if we fail to advocate the rights of homosexuals as human beings?"

In the struggle between life and death, we follow a religion that sides with life even up and to the point of death for ourselves. That is what we proclaim. Yet, we have allowed ourselves to be so consumed by the structure of values that we have imposed on biblical faith that we have effectively denied the entire purpose for Christianity's existence. Jesus did not come so that we might raise healthy, heterosexual families under the aegis of "biblical" values. He came that the lost sheep might be found, because if a lost sheep stays lost, it dies. He offered no guidelines for what a sheep must look or act like before it is returned. He only demanded that if we follow him, we take care of these, because when we don't they die. God sides with life.

The point is this: relations between Christian churches and the homosexual community are one of the greatest failures we have faced in our contemporary situation. There are certainly shining examples of churches who have done better, but unfortunately these typically turn into churches of homosexuals, rather than churches which are for homosexuals.

There are also many who are slowly pulling back from the repulsive intolerance which has been characteristic of Christian preachers. Yet, a halfhearted tolerance or even a impotent political correctness is not what is needed. Such is an attitude that makes our Bibles less valuable than toilet paper. The only authentic, Christian response is to affirm life over death. The experience of homosexuals worldwide has long been one which dictated by fear of death. It has reduced them to invisibility and shame.

As a statement of fact: If a church fails to extend the affirmation of life and defiance of death to all from the pulpit, in their doctrine, and with their actions, then they have scorned the message of Jesus and made a mockery of their own faith.

Every homosexual that dies or is beaten is a scandal to the message of Jesus, and this must be preached to his community because his community must act by this message. Every homosexual who lives in fear, is denied the life that God would give them, and what the world would deny the Church should confirm.

If the fold hates the lost sheep, the shepherd will leave and die with the lost. Jesus left our churches a long time ago.