During these Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) hearings before
the Supreme Court I keep hearing how much Christians hate gay people. This was
news to me since I am a Christian and I don’t hate gay people.
I also go to church with over 1000 other Christians, and if
any of them hate gay people, they sure haven’t told me.
Before moving to South Carolina I worked at or attended
several churches in Texas; prior to that I spent a decade going to church in Florida.
Guess what? No one hated gay people.
In fact, I don’t know any Christians who hate anybody. The
very uniform of a believer is his love, and if a person does not show
consistent love, then he is not actually a believer.
Are there non-believers who hate gay people and claim to be
Christian? Of course. But that doesn’t represent Jesus or His church.
Equating hateful sign-wavers with
Christianity is like equating a kindergarten baseball team to the New York Yankees.
They may claim to be playing the same sport, but everyone understands the
difference.
In fact, the very way to tell a Christian from a
non-Christian is on this issue: do they show love? Jesus said, “By this all men
will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another (John
13:35).” We don’t take people at their word, but by their actions.
The traditional Christian view is that homosexuality is
wrong (which is biblical), but Christians are quick to remind that we “hate the
sin but love the sinner.” This is not homophobia or “picking and choosing,” as
I often hear, because Christians are also opposed to adultery, fornication,
strip clubs, pornography, and sensual media, to name a few. When I preach a true love waits message to our teenagers, am I being heterophobic?
The people shouting the “Christians hate gays” lines are the
ones picking and choosing. Did you know that Islam is opposed to homosexuality?
Why is no one criticizing them? Buddha was opposed to homosexuality, so are
Buddhists homophobic? The fact that Christianity is bearing the brunt proves
that this is the oldest trick in the book: vilifying your opponent to gain
sympathy support.
Once a person is branded as being a hateful bigot or a
homophobe then the debate is over. People no longer focus on the objective
arguments, and their sympathy is thrown in the corner of the victim of hate.
So please let me be a calm voice for Christianity and say that,
no, we do not hate gays, or anyone else.
Comments
Yes, Christians believe that people who reject God go to hell, but that is not hateful. Believing something to be true isn't hateful. I believe that smoking causes lung cancer, but that doesn't mean I hate smokers. In fact, it motivates me to warn them. My belief in the reality of hell motivates me to warn people.
My whole post was about love, and you made several comments about us showing hate. You can't comment on a blog about love by saying that I am being hateful. This was the most non-hateful blog ever. Your comments show that you either missed the point or are willfully lying. Either way, they don't discredit my post.
I never said homosexuals are sick perverts, like you accused me of. My entire post was saying the opposite.
And why are you going off about Christians hating themselves? I have no idea what half of that meant, and I wrote a book (All the Law) about how nobody hates themselves.
And honestly,asking why nobody blames Muslims boggles the imagination. Muslims are blamed for anything and everything under the sum.
But what's truly telling is that your only interest in this whole issue is apparently not to be called names. Sorry, but welcome to the party.
I didn't say no one blames Muslims; they are blamed for many things today (but not as much as when I wrote this post two years ago prior to the rise of ISIS). However, I do not hear anyone criticize Islam for their strong stance against homosexuality. I hear that Christians hate gays, but Islam is a religion of peace.
Finally, you could not be more wrong on your assessment of me. I couldn't care less about being called names. You can welcome me to the party, but I've been here for years. I've been called every name in the book for my beliefs, and have never lost a wink of sleep over it. The point of the post was to expose the lie that Christians are hateful based on viewing homosexuality as sinful, and to defend the ones who are constantly called hateful.