Prop 8 (And what it means for you!)

Hello friends!

I've been seemingly getting more and more controversial around here the last couple of days, so why not go the whole nine yards and bring up gay marriage again.

Let's start in the owners manual. As my beautiful and talented wife pointed out on her blog (http://sarahfett.blogspot.com/2010/08/homophobia-is-gay.html) (my linky thing is broken or something...sorry) the Bible is fairly clear on homosexual behavior, but fails to say anything at all about homosexual orientation. According to the Scriptures, you can feel however you want, acting on it is a bit of a problem.

I understand that the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sin or not is a pretty hot button topic, and that I don't know where I am, but let's push it as far to one side as we can take it for the moment and say for the sake of argument that it is 100% a sin. Let's say that a person is actively engaged in a homosexual lifestyle (a phrase that makes as little sense as "christian coffee shop," but whatever) but has accepted Jesus into their hearts as Savior. Wouldn't that make them beloved forgiven sons and daughters of God? Wouldn't that wipe clean their transgressions? Wouldn't that put them in exactly the same boat you and I find ourselves in?

But Jason (I can hear some of you screaming through your computers), they're living in sin and are not repentant of their sins. Fair point. Did you know that we have hard evidence that 74% of Americans age 18-34 are in that very same place? They knowingly participate in a forum of sin and debauchery, directly in opposition of Romans 1:25-31. They openly admit it, and in fact it's become such a part of the American culture that we have adopted part of the lexicon of this sin into our everyday lives.

I'm referring of course to Facebook.

Facebook is a center for little more than gossip, isn't it? Youth leaders, back me up on this, when was the last time you had a meeting where you DIDN'T hear someone say "Did you see what happened to so and so on Facebook?" or "Well everyone on Facebook is commenting on so and so's page" or "I have to get home so I can check on Facebook and stalk people." We all know that Facebook is a place for little more than gossip at best, and slanderous talk at worst, and according to our passage in Romans (typically used to oppose same-sex marriage) we see that it's a sin. Yet most of us unrepentantly continue to live a life consumed by this particular sin.

If you want to get a good feel on how severe a sin is, I would venture a guess that the number of times Jesus mentions it in the Gospels is a pretty good indicator of how important it is to God, right? Do you know how many times Jesus mentions homosexuality, orientation or behavior? Never. Zero. Nada. Go ahead and check me out on that, but while you're doing it, check out how many times Jesus talks about divorce, and then count the number of divorced people in your congregation. We seem eager to forgive them (as we should), but Jesus had some pretty harsh words for them. If we're going to be harsh with our homosexual brothers and sisters, then shouldn't we have some harsh words for those who have been divorced for reasons beyond infidelity? Or do we need to be harsh with anyone at all?

The trick is, if we're going to make the claim that homosexual behavior is a sin, and that is absolutely the worst thing we can say about it, then friends it's time to stop treating those folks like they're living a great life of debauchery while you and I are living a holy and blameless life. No one is blameless. Probably the most under rated and forgotten part of God's gift of Grace is that is levels the playing field. I am certainly no better than you, just as you are no better than me. In Christ's eyes, we're all the same.

As I mentioned on the blog yesterday, you and I have two jobs as believers in Christ. We have to love the Lord with all we've got, and love our neighbors as ourselves. If you keep reading you'll find the third job, to go and make disciples of all nations. These three things above all have we as Christians been called to.

I can't find on Google an exact breakdown of how much was spent on Proposition 8, with legal fees and propaganda and advertising and what have you, but I bet if we could it would be an astronomically big number. If you were a person of homosexual orientation, and you looked at the sensational amount of money the church was willing to spend to keep you from being happy, what are the chances you would be willing to accept Jesus Christ? What are the chances you would be ok hearing a person talk about the freedom that Christ has to offer? What are the chances that you would be wanting to walk through a door and find love in a church? Probably slim to none.

The truth is, we can't force everybody in this country to be Christian through the laws we pass, which is essentially what things like Prop 8 are trying to do. If your church or denomination is uncomfortable with gay marriage going on, that's fine and that's your choice. But we shouldn't force that choice on people who don't know the love and forgiveness of our savior. It's a religiously free nation, and if Jews are allowed to celebrate Passover and Muslims are allowed to celebrate Ramadan and the best you can come up with for the reason homosexuals can't marry is because the bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman, then we can't tell people it's illegal. It's simply not our place.

The bottom line for me is that I celebrate and worship a Savior, not a religion. Absolutely nothing would make me happier than to share with each and every person on the planet the great and surpassing love of Jesus. The truth is that I don't think we can do that while we're angrily telling people what they can and can't do. Let's start with spreading the love of Christ, and then move on to other issues as they come up.

That love of course applies to the comments on the blog and Facebook! I'd love to have a lively debate, but let's keep love first and foremost in our hearts. Game on!

Godspeed,

Jason

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:W Market St,Breezy Point,United States