Love is an Orientation 1
I have read the intro and the first two chapters of Love is an Orientation. Andrew starts the book out by explaining what it is like to be gay and have this sinking feeling that you will be condemned to hell. If not by God, than you will by Christians. He cautions his reader (I think he has experienced this) that someone who has not experienced same-sex attraction can not have true empathy for what a gay person has experienced and what they have lived through as they came to terms with the reality of that. He says, don’t PRETEND. This is the quickest way to lose credibility.
That, might be the hardest issue for Evangelicals to get past.
We want to stand in the safety zone of our doctrine and interpretation of scripture and require the gay person to do something before they “come as they are” into our churches. Whether it is repentance or denial doesn’t matter, just as long as we don’t know about it.
Andrew says a few times in the first chapters that Christians have to be the ones to apologize and engage. You see, Andrew is not saying anything new, Jesus consistently turns the world upside down by requiring the ones that know him and believe in him to be humble servants. “Wash feet” he says, “but who’s feet we say” “the least of these of course.” Jesus engages the sub-cultures that are “out” with the Pharisees. There is no other sub-culture in Western Society that is as “out” (vs. in) with the Pharisees – uh, I mean Evangelicals. It is our responsibility to engage whether we like it or not. Will we?
Two quotes:
At one of Andrew’s classes, Chuck erupted and said, “Why do I need you, and why do I need your God? I don’t need either.” Andrew says, this is the defining opinion of the gay community about Christians and Christianity. “I don’t need your God.” That should break our hearts.
Andrew goes on, “When everyone’s eyes started to dry, I asked Chuck what brought on that moment. “I come to these classes because it brings me back to the one thing that I always wanted. But I’m too scared to let myself fall for this again. So I just sit and listen and try to feel blessed in this place as I pray that there is somehow a spot for me in heaven.” (pg. 31-32)
“It’s not about us! It’s never been about our life, our situation, or what we have to endure. It’s about a person exposing their life, staring us in the face, terrified at how we might react. That is a sacred moment, and some of us are fortunate enough to have had the privilege of being intimately involved in the moment a person chooses to trust us with their secret identity, their secret curse, their secret sin or whatever their secret might be.” (pg. 34)
Jason, thankyou so much for being willing to tackle this issue. So many pastors either stay dogmatically rooted in their theology or run screaming in the opposite direction out of fear! It is a painful issue and (IMHO) a theological minefield, but we need to deal with it better than we have been…
I am sorry to comment so many times in the same place, but I want to clarify a comment I made above. It might sound to your readers like I still think it is a sin. I absolutely do not. See this link on the Gay Christian Network for more info. http://www.gaychristian.net/justins_view.php
Theresa,
I think I’m tracking with you.
Jason
Looking forward to your insight on this book. Have wanted to read and speak with Andrew about it. My initial hesitation of the book is that is too evangelical meaning that it maybe too “salvation orientated”. I hope I am wrong.
Theresa, you should check out http://queermergent.wordpress.com/.
AO, funny you should suggest queermergent to me. I have a post in the queue to soon appear there. I was going to come out there, as the author, Adele, is a friend of mine. But I did it here first. My post will come out there eventually though.
Thank you for the suggestion. It is a good one!
Oh, and I am halfway thru and it is not “salvation oriented.” FYI. Enjoy!
I haven’t gotten any
This book has been a real eye-opener for me in many ways. I am a bisexual Christian woman (who happens to be married to a wonderful Christian man) but have not had the privilege of being in the company (much) of the GLBT community at large. I came out in high school, but I “prayed the gay away” just after graduation. However, I discovered a bit later that my orientation had not, in fact, changed. God had delivered me from some issues of lust, etc. I had been facing at the time, and that was a radical enough deliverance for me that I had assumed more than I had received. But gay just isn’t something God was going to take from me, no matter how much I asked, how ashamed I felt. I never came back out to tell people I had been wrong about my supposed deliverance, so I have essentially been back in the proverbial closet for many years now. Although a few very close friends know my secret, I am re-coming out right here on your blog.
As a woman who has carried this secret all this time, and who has believed the message I had been taught that it was a sin, I have not been the most supportive person I could have been. For that I am sorry, and I – even I – have much to learn about how the Church (including myself) must learn to love and dialogue with the GLBT community.
It is my hope that the Body of Christ can reconcile with this group of people, can see fit to stop drawing circles around themselves in which not everybody can enter, and can stop conveying (whether directly or indirectly) that God is ashamed of them – or worse, hates them. I guess I can stop saying “them” now and begin saying “us”.
Once again, thank you for posting this. I pray it brings about at least a portion of the change we so desperately need. One drop at a time, we can fill this bucket with the love of Jesus.