Part One ... Part Two

McClaren started the post entitled “Why is There So Much Hatred Towards Homosexuals?” with a heart-breaking email he received from a man practicing homosexuality:

Today I’m a [middle-aged] man, and have come to terms with my sexuality and my relationship with god (sic), and I realize that god (sic) does not hate me, and never abandoned me. But because of the churches (sic) out right (sic) hatred of homosexuality I was condemned to a living hell for most of my life.

Please explain to my (sic) why there is so much hatred towards homosexuals.

Also I hear over and over how it is us who are trying to force our views on you, and the rest of the world. But that simply is not true, it is the church that is forcing it’s (sic) view on us. We are not asking you to be gay, or change your life in any way (sic), we just want you to leave us in peace and let us live our lives. And if you are right and we are going to hell, fine, let that happen. Please stop making our current life a living hell. Please leave that up to God to decide for our eternal souls.

Obviously this is written by a man in pain, and a man with a very distorted view of the church and its mission.  In this small portion of the email alone, there is such a desperate cry for answers, for truth, for help.  But because the Emerging Church is so paralyzed with fear over the thought of being divisive, they fall over themselves to hide their light under a bushel and tamp down the proclamation of truth.  In its place, they offer meaningless platitudes and fruitless fluff like that embodied in McClaren’s “response”:

Thank you, thank you, for your painfully yet beautifully honest inquiry. I hope that what you have written will be read by thousands of people here, and that it will help them see how horrible the current situation is for homosexual people - who are, as you say, so loved by God and so mistreated by too many churches. It breaks my heart, and I don’t know what to say.

You asked why they are so hateful. I wish I knew, and I wish we could fix the problem. Here are a couple brief hunches.

1. Some are simply trying to be faithful to God and the Bible, and they believe they must speak out on the issue in the way they do out of faithfulness.

2. Some use this issue as a tool of political division. They want to split churches and denominations so they can drive some people out and have other people more to their liking in power. In other words, I believe that for many people, it’s not about homosexuality at all, or even about pleasing God, but it’s about a conscious or subconscious desire for power.

3. Some people feel they have been mistreated by “liberals” and they are responding out of their pain - not a good thing, but it happens.

4. Some people have deep guilt and pain which they haven’t processed, and this becomes an unconscious motivation, erupting in meanness of spirit and a lack of compassion.

I have a draft of something I’ve written on the subject, and perhaps some day the time will be right to make it publicly available. In the meantime, please know that thousands of people will read this email, grieve with you and pray for you, and do what they can to change the nasty tone so common in too many churches.

I defy you to find anything of substance, anything meaningful in that response.  Perhaps that’s not entirely fair.  It’s clear that McClaren is conveying what he believes to be compassion.  But for a man who supposedly practices a profession that aims to guide people to the deliverance that comes from God’s truth (which is the ultimate compassion), this is painful to read. 

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Yet this is precisely what the Emerging Church has wrought: a paralyzing fear of speaking truth to people, dreading the thought of being labeled divisive or offensive.  But that’s the very nature of truth – it divides right from wrong, good from bad, true from false, yes from no.  Still, these voices of the EC do their best to avoid addressing those divides.  They blur the lines between the two, thinking that they are being tolerant, and somehow obeying Christ’s command to not judge.  Of course there is a profound difference between judging the eternal fate of someone and properly identifying their sinful behavior as sinful. 

Look back through McClaren’s response and find anywhere in it where he expresses the simple, Biblical truth that the practice of homosexuality – just like other sexually immoral practices that people may have strong urges and temptations towards – is sinful or wrong.  You won’t find it.  Not a singular moment where McClaren finds the love of Christ to say as Jesus did to the woman caught up in adultery (another form of sexual sin), “Go and sin no more.”  Not once.  That’s a sad commentary on the state of his ministry and the urgency he feels to seek and save lost souls.

Obviously I know my popularity and notoriety do not come close to equaling that of Brian McClaren, and so the likelihood that the man who wrote this email to McClaren will ever see my response is very slim.  But he deserved a meaningful answer.  And since McClaren lacked the courage to provide it, here’s my best attempt at giving him one:

Today I’m a [middle-aged] man, and have come to terms with my sexuality and my relationship with god (sic), and I realize that god (sic) does not hate me, and never abandoned me. But because of the churches (sic) out right (sic) hatred of homosexuality I was condemned to a living hell for most of my life.

Please explain to my (sic) why there is so much hatred towards homosexuals.

It is very clear that the first thing we have to do is to make sure we are operating with the same definition of the word “hatred.”  Without establishing this, we may be arguing on two completely separate set of tracks.  If you, as many of those who have bought into the political agenda of the sexual anarchy movement have done, define hatred to include moral disapproval of certain behaviors, then there is the problem.  Moral disapproval is NOT hatred.  You understand this implicitly whether it’s convenient for you to acknowledge or not.

Consider: you condemn the “hatred” of Christians that you see directed towards homosexuality.  In other words, you morally disapprove of the church’s opposition to a lifestyle you embrace.  If moral disapproval equals hatred, then you necessarily are guilty of hating the church.  That’s point number one: if you do not consider your moral disapproval of the church “hatred,” then you must be consistent in not applying that label to Christians who disapprove of homosexuality. 

Many of those who you callously accuse of hating homosexuals are merely expressing moral disapproval of a behavior that is deemed immoral in Scripture.  In truth, the Christians you should really be wary of are those who do not express moral opposition to homosexuality.  To a Christian who understands that sin leads to death, there is nothing more hateful than to quietly abide or sympathetically condone sin.  Convincing sinners they don’t need atonement or deliverance is the very definition of hate.  Conversely, there is nothing more loving than to risk the derision of confused men to speak the message of truth that hurts, but heals.

Also I hear over and over how it is us who are trying to force our views on you, and the rest of the world. But that simply is not true, it is the church that is forcing it’s (sic) view on us. We are not asking you to be gay, or change your life in any way (sic), we just want you to leave us in peace and let us live our lives.

While that may very well be your personal intention, it is patently false to suggest that the homosexualist political agenda seeks peaceful coexistence with the traditional morality (specifically sexual morality) taught by orthodox Christianity.  Whether it’s charitable services, church facilities and even messages/sermons, small businesses and their employment standards, or professional services being offered by Christians, homosexualists are demanding legal changes that force believers into the choice of either honoring the law or honoring God (see a host of specific examples in this report).  If that isn’t “forcing (your) views” or telling Christians to change their lives, I don’t know what is.

I don’t doubt that you earnestly and honestly believe that all you are asking is to be left in peace to live your life.  But think critically about the issue.  Those practicing homosexuality were, for the most part, allowed to live in peace and practice their sexual behavior privately for decades.  What the homosexual movement (and you apparently) now seek is a societal recognition, approval and commendation of homosexuality as a lifestyle morally equivalent to married, heterosexual monogamy. 

Don’t take my word for it.  U.S. News & World Report even took note of this phenomenon as far back as 1992 when they wrote, “A line is being crossed here; in fact, a brand new ethic is descending upon [us]. The traditional virtue of tolerance (if gays want to live together, it’s their own business) has been replaced with a new ethic requiring approval and endorsement.”

Regardless of intentions, that is certainly not requesting to be “left alone in peace.”

And if you are right and we are going to hell, fine, let that happen.

That’s the issue – a true believer can’t do that.  A true believer is motivated by the love of Jesus that compels them to rebuke sinful behavior and offer the redemption of Christ.  An increasing number of Christians – like many in the Emerging Church – are retreating from that Scriptural command because they don’t like the persecution of being called names.  But true believers want all men to find the grace that saved them from their own sins and failures, so telling them to just let other sinners “go to hell” is unacceptable. 

Please stop making our current life a living hell. Please leave that up to God to decide for our eternal souls.

It may be a fair criticism to say that too many Christians stigmatize homosexuality in a way that they don’t stigmatize other sexual sins like pre-marital sex, cohabitation, adultery and pornography.  If that is what you mean by “stop making our current life a living hell,” you have a legitimate point.  When Christians don’t love the sinner in their appropriate condemnation of the sin, they often times drive the sinner further from the grace that they intend to offer.

Here is the truth you need to know: God wants no one to perish, regardless of whatever sinful temptations they struggle with personally.  That is why he offered free atonement through the blood of His perfect Son.  He didn’t make that offer for those who had already overcome their sins, but rather died for us while we were still in them (Romans 5:8).  That amazing grace is what ambassadors of God (2 Corinthians 5:20) are to proclaim to those still trapped by the sinful flesh.  Deliverance from sin is not easy, particularly sexual sin in an overly sexualized culture like our own.  Indeed, many married men who have strong heterosexual urges, struggle their whole lives to find deliverance from the temptation of lust.  But through the grace of Christ and for the sake of the cross, they resist the easy path of surrendering to those temptations and justifying their sin on the basis that their urge felt “natural” to them.  They don’t condemn God for giving them those sinful desires, but rather trust God to help them channel their nature, making it obedient to Christ.  Those who struggle with same-sex attraction – who find those urges natural and powerful – are Biblically called to do the same.

I credit the Emerging Church and men like Brian McClaren for their Christlike efforts to reach beyond the boundaries of the redeemed and into communities caught up in worldly lifestyles.  But once there, I pray that they will stop fulfilling the words of Timothy, speaking only what “itching ears want to hear,” and begin finding the courage to speak the Truth that is so desperately needed by a world that doesn’t want to hear it.