I give an assignment in one of my classes that amuses and delights me. I love it for two reasons: (1) it will be one of the best learning experiences the students ever have and (2) I’m an intellectual sadist. I love scaring people into learning something. God’s done it to me plenty, so I figure he doesn’t mind if I spread the love.
I teach a class called Clinical Issues in Sexual Diversity at a Christian graduate school of psychology. I require the students to spend three hours in a “sexually diverse environment” (translation: some place with lots of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people). There’s only one requirement: they have to have a conversation with at least one of these sexually diverse folks.
At first, this assignment is anything but popular. Most of my students are straight evangelical Christians. Some of them have never even met anyone who isn’t heterosexual. Some of them believe strongly that homosexuality is a sin. They’re pretty mad at me when I give them this assignment. After they complete it—not so much.
When these budding psychologists sit down and talk with a sexually diverse man or woman, they discover the people behind the “issue.” They make friends. They connect with hearts and minds that get buried under contentious issues such as gay marriage, homosexual ordination, etc. They hear stories—often painful—from people who long for God and community but feel ostracized. One of the most common accounts my students hear is about men or women who lost their relationship with God and their Christian family because of their sexual orientation. Some withdraw in fear, while others get outright excommunicated. Regardless, the cycle of shame that follows is sad and predictable.
Many Christian churches denounce homosexually, claiming (or at least strongly implying) that anyone in a homosexual relationship cannot be a Christian. In response, a lot of homosexuals abandon church and sometimes even their relationship with God. Even if they don’t intellectually believe that God hates them, they often feel this way. They’ve heard for too long their sexual orientation makes them depraved. They shrink away from their relationship with God and His Church. A cycle of shame begins that makes some feel—and sometimes even act—like they aren’t worthy of God’s love.
Now and then, however, the cycle gets broken. A church or a believer reaches out in love to a homosexual, or a homosexual persists through persecution, clinging to his relationship with God and finding a church that accepts him. This can only happen with great resolve. It takes courage for homosexuals to walk back into a church of heterosexual evangelicals, hoping for acceptance and love in a place where they’ve come to expect rejection and shame. It also isn’t easy for many straight Christians to move past their discomfort and reach out to homosexuals. I don’t mean discomfort related to theology. I mean, for example, a straight guy overcoming his unease and even disgust at thoughts of homosexual sex in order to befriend a gay man. We get so preoccupied with the political and theological debates about homosexuality that we don’t see the importance of making a connection with those most affected by the “issues.”
When my students meet the people behind the issues, they discover something surprising: their theology about homosexuality becomes less important. The priority becomes the person instead of the issue. Rarely do any of my students change their beliefs about homosexuality. If someone begins the class believing it’s a sin, he or she usually leaves that way. But, regardless, they form relationships that make them care more about a person than proving a point.
I won’t go so far to say that our theology about homosexuality doesn’t matter, but once humanity is brought into the equation, the debate isn’t as heated. When it comes to homosexuality, we aren’t just dealing with a theological or political issue; we’re dealing with people. Unfortunately, the approach most churches take is to determine their stance on homosexuality and then decide whether or not they want to sustain relationships with homosexuals. They’ve put the matter backwards. Regardless of one’s theology about homosexuality, there’s no excuse for ostracizing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered folks. Even if someone thinks homosexual behavior is a sin, it does not justify wholesale rejection of a human being or, worse, a group of human beings.
