. . . and, in doing so, I’ll probably irk both my liberal and my conservative friends. Still, it bears repeating:
In my debate with Wilson, I said that I did not think that Christians who read the Scriptures conservatively, who take the words in, say, Romans 1 at face value and thus conclude that all same-sex behavior is sinful, are necessarily homophobic. They’re trying to reconcile their views with the Bible, and I don’t fault them or think they’re worse Christians, or worse people, or stupid, for doing so.
Neither do I believe that that makes them better Christians than those who struggle with the plain reading of the Biblical text and endeavor to seek if Paul was referring to what he likely hadn’t ever seen — a committed, loving, monogamous relationship between adult men, something different from temple prostitution and the sexual license, hetero- and homosexual, it produced. I don’t believe that these Christians are worse Christians for doing so; conversely, I don’t think that makes them more “sophisticated” than other, more conservative Bible students.
I reject that homophobia, when found among the first group, is an inevitable product of conservative exegesis. It isn’t. It’s a product of hate. You might believe the Scriptures condemn all practice, under all circumstances, of homosexual relations and use that to fuel violence, hate, and bigotry against gay men and lesbians, OR you might walk in humility and seek the good of all, serving your neighbor and protecting his rights in love and in graciousness, taking stock of your own sexual and moral inventory whether you offer an Exodus Ministry tract to a GLBT person or not.
Likewise, you may well grasp that no one “chooses to be gay,” and believe that the starkly different cultural milieu of the 21st century, a period during which same-sex erotic behavior is demonstrated in committed, mature partnerships and not in pagan temple frenzy, permits if not requires the Church’s acceptance of the GLBT community AS the GLBT community. You are right, then, to denounce ugliness of any sort in the name of Christ — but you are wrong to label all conservative Christians as homophobes. Wait to see, in the same humility you want to see in others, what they do with it; wait to see if the fruit of the Spirit accompanies their defense of the clear, plain words, or if their “sticking to the text” produces fruit of another kind. The enemy is always hate, and being more liberal in your hermeneutic doesn’t provide immunity or excuse.
There are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people who love Jesus Christ and seek to be conformed to his character just as much as I do, or just as much as you do. Tragically, from what I’ve seen here recently, some of the “conservatives,” by their hatred, seem to love him a lot less than the GLBT Christians I know. And that, I think, is significant.