I'm a Christian...Unless you're gay?

I'm a Christian...Unless you're gay?
The other day I read an article on someone's blog entitled 'I'm a Christian, unless you're gay.' The article was written by a non-christian, and it really got me thinking. The author of the article was basically trying to say that most religions (not just christianity) have some sort of teaching about loving others, and yet so many people from every religion seem to completely forget about that part of their religion and concentrate merely on the things that people disagree with them about.

The article obviously had something of a non-christian slant, and some of the things that the author said absolutely cannot be accepted by a Christian. However, the basic message was very applicable, and I think it is a message that really needs to be taken to heart by many people, and especially Christians. I was completely shocked by some of the comments that had been posted on the the article. Many 'Christians' had commented and said absolutely terrible and un-Christian things. One man, in his comment, said:

'those people who are having such a hard time being gay? it's only cause they don’t want to let it go. If they actually wanted to let it go I bet life would get a lot easier for them. After all, being gay is going against what god made us naturally to be and doing what is natural is a whole lot easier.' 

 Another person commented that:
  'homosexuality is unnatural and a choice they simply make because it’s easier for them to get some action that way......It’s not my job to love the people who pervert God’s laws. It’s not my job to love people who purposefully defile the things that I hold sacred.' 

I find it extremely unsettling that people who call themselves Christians can say things like this and yet believe that what they are doing is in accordance with God's will. The repeated idea that people 'choose' homosexuality because they want to makes no sense to me at all. It is possible that some people may be pressured into 'trying' homosexuality by our culture, (bi-curious) but it is also true that many people who have never experienced any sort of pressure do struggle with homosexual tendencies. I think all Christians will agree that every human on the face of the earth is born into the world with a tendency to a certain sort of sin. Some have the tendency to have a flaming hot temper, some have a tendency to be attracted to and addicted to porn. Sinfulness comes in every shape and form and attacks us in every part of our life, whether that may be our temperaments, our sexuality, our mentality, etc.
As Christians, we need to realize that every single sinful thing that we do is enough to put us in hell for all eternity. We also need to realize that if we are proud of ourselves for struggling against and controlling our hot temper, we should also be proud of the man or woman who struggles against homosexuality and does not give in to it. It makes me sick when I hear stories of people who admit to their friends or to their churches that they struggle with gay tendencies and who are immediately discarded by their friends and shunned by God's people.

I am not talking merely about people within the church though, there are, of course, people outside of the church who are openly homosexual, and do not struggle against it at all. Well, since they do not fight against it, then we can hate them, ignore them, and insult them, right? Wrong! The first thing we have to ask ourselves is this, 'if this person is not a christian, then how can I tell them that it is wrong for them to be gay? What do I base that on?' We need to realize that telling a gay person that they are sinning because they are gay is completely abstract for them. To explain to them why it is wrong, you have to explain EVERYTHING to them. You must explain who God is, why there is sin in the world, what sin is, what happens to sinners, and how they can escape. Only on this foundation can you explain to anyone in an understandable way that what they are doing is wrong. And guess what? It's going to take a while! This is not something that you can explain to someone in a day, and it is not something that should be said in an aggressive way. Christ commanded us to 'Speak the truth in love.' It is impossible to truly love a person if we do not understand anything about them. Sometimes you have to 'eat with tax collectors' in order to explain the truth to them.

Another thing to keep in mind is that once (and if) a person admits that homosexuality is indeed a sin, you CANNOT just leave them to fend for themselves. To tell someone that they are doing something wrong, and then leave them with no support as they attempt to struggle against it is cruel. I encourage you to think of sins that you may have/have had a problem with. What do you think is better, trying to struggle through that sin on your own, or having Godly friends to encourage you in the battle? I would definitely argue that it is always easier to fight against sin when you have people that you trust there to put an arm around you and tell you that you are doing well.

In conclusion, I would like to go back to one of the comments that I earlier quoted. The one commenter said 'It’s not my job to love the people who pervert God’s laws.' But isn't that exactly what our job is? I hope that every person who reads this can see the problem with this man's statement. What is evangelism about? Is it about preaching God's love to those who look righteous enough? Or is it about gathering up lost, filthy sheep and lovingly leading them to a savior who has the power to wash them white as snow? You decide.