“It was Christians protecting Christians from Christians.”
So ran one line of a short article about Portland believers who blocked Westboro Baptist protestors from sight at
a conference for the Christian Gay Network.
I heard about the conference and the protest yesterday from
a friend of mine who is attending the conference. Seeing a retweeted picture of
one of the conference goers posing with two protestors on either side of her
was like a punch in my gut, especially because of her comment that she told
them that she loved them all.
“Who is the better Christian here???” I asked myself. Not
that I ought to judge “how Christian” someone is…..perhaps the better question
is, “Who displayed a more Christ-like attitude here?” Was it the church
protestors with their signs of hate and hell condemnation? Or was it the
conference attendee who told those spewing such words that she loved them?
Wrestling with this issue embedded itself so much in my mind
that I dreamed about it in some sort of fashion last night as I slept. I don’t
even quite remember the details of it, I just know that was involved in it
somehow.
Then I woke up this morning and went to church, where the
sermon was on Romans 14:13-19, which says in part “Therefore do not let your
good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,
but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit….Therefore let us pursue
the things which make for peace and things by which one may edify another” (vs.
16-17, 19). The sermon came in the context of this new year’s theme at the
organization where I work: “Your kingdom come” from the Lord’s Prayer in
Matthew 6, and as I listened to the preaching I couldn’t help but think of the
situation in Portland.
Because, of course, the issue is much much deeper than what
happened recently at one conference. I am from a country where an immense
political/legal battle is being waged about states legalizing gay marriage. I
currently live in a country where they have passed laws instituting strict
penalties for carrying out homosexual acts. This issue is one of the major
debates of our current generation, all over the world.
And it’s not an issue that I will even attempt to scratch
the surface of here.
I am very sure I would never have gone as far as the
Westboro protestors go. But my conservative background means that I grew up
with definite opinions about the issue that were closer to them than to the
Portland counter-protestors. It used to be easy to give pat answers to this question…but
it is not anymore.
The brief reason for that is having friends whose sexuality
does not fit into the easy, simple categories. I have three, that I know of, who
have struggled with questions about their sexuality and gender. And as I have
heard their stories and the stories of others like them, I have lost my ability
to quickly judge people and dump them in a particular spiritual box based on
this issue alone. All three of these friends attended the same Christian college
that I did – and I know that at least one of them desires very much to know and
love God just like I do.
The fact that we definitely do not see eye to eye regarding
all topics—particularly this one—does not one bit change the fact that I care
about each of them as individuals bearing the image of God, individuals for whom
Christ died. I love them, and I pray for them just as I do many of my other
friends.
In all honesty, I don’t always know what to say or how to
respond. I don’t know how to reconcile the beliefs I was raised with to the
questions—and sometimes hurt and pain—that I have seen my friends deal with. Sometimes
a small part of me wishes I could ignore their stories and go back to my easy
answers.
But life isn’t about easy answers. And life definitely does
not rely on me for the final decisions—Thank God for that!
In the end, I am thankful for these three friends of mine. I
am so thankful for them, for their courage and their willingness to share about
themselves and their struggles. And the real fact is that I wouldn’t change my
knowledge of their stories even if I could. Because hearing their realities has
peeled another layer of judgmental scales off my eyes.
We are all broken people. We—each and every one of us—face personal
challenges that we must wrestle with. And often the decision is at least partly
up to us: Are we going to allow our trials and struggles to pull us away from
God? Will we try to do life on our own strength? Or will we see those
challenges and trials for what they are: a reminder of our daily need to run
towards God and to rely on Him for EVERYTHING, to trust in His wisdom and His
plan of redeeming ALL THINGS.
Because in the end, it is to Him that I turn when my earthly
mind can’t rectify my friends’ stories with my original beliefs. When I don’t
know the answers, it’s a reminder to trust the One who does. And so, I do not
end this post with a pat theory that will solve all the problems. But I do end
it with a call: A call to righteousness and peace and joy in our Paraclete, a
call to love and work together to build one another up, not to judge and
condemn.
