In response to K.B. Napier’s article, “Gays Hate God,” as well as the rest of her misguided articles about homosexuality, I would like to make a cease and desist request.
Seriously, please stop. On behalf of Christian’s who have gay friends, I would like to ask you to stop wasting your time writing articles that will keep gays away from the church, and start spending that time on something more productive- like loving people.
I am not even asking that you love gays. I don’t care who you love, just love people. Stop focusing so much on what God hates and who hates God. Is hate really all that important? When Jesus was asked to name the two greatest commandments, they both focused on love. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God, and the second greatest was to love people. How are your articles showing love towards people?
In my opinion, they are far from loving. At best, they are slightly misguided. At worst, they will push homosexuals further away from Christ and closer to hell. I hope it is not the latter, but comments on these articles lead me to believe that it is.
Napier advises me to “find out what gays are doing to this world,” as if I should be upset about this. I assume that you are talking about the fact that they want to be allowed in Christian universities, and AIDS, and stuff like that. However, I honestly think that “this world” is so far from important. My citizenship is in heaven. Rather than worrying how some gays on this planet may infringe upon my freedom, I would prefer to remember that I am free in Christ, and worry about my friends whose citizenship is not in heaven, who may not be joining me there. And yes, some of my friend’s are gay, but I love them anyway.
I love them in spite of their sin. You are right that God does especially mention how much certain sins upset him, but the only one that you seem to focus on is homosexuality. Do you choose not to focus on divorce because it is so much more socially acceptable?
You say that we must shun gays and not converse with them, calling it a gross public sin. Divorce is also a gross public sin, but you say nothing about that. Unfortunately, there are also many people having sex outside of marriage nowadays, which I am sure is equally as upsetting to God. How can we expect anyone to come to know the saving grace of Christ if Christians do not converse with them? Shunning someone is never going to make someone want to become a Christian.
There is one thing that I will agree with you on: I do not think that gays should become pastors. I also do not think that the Christian church should embrace homosexuality as okay. You say in your article “Jesus and Gays,” that many Christians would argue that homosexuality is okay because Christ does not specifically mention it. It may not be mentioned in the gospels, but it is mentioned in several other places in the Bible, so I am certainly not arguing that it is not a sin. It is certainly a sin. However, you make it seem that a gay person must change their ways before coming to Christ, and that is just not true. If everyone had to immediately stop all of their sinning before coming to Christ, then no one would ever come to Christ. Christ takes us as we are. Just like the Samaritan woman at the well. He knew that she had been married several times and was then living with a man she wasn’t even married to. Yet, he didn’t say anything to her about changing her ways. He just offered her living water.
Drinking the living water of Christ (metaphorically speaking) has a tendency to make people want to change their ways. For this reason, I think it is important that Christians befriend and love sinners, including gays. When we befriend them, we help them get to know our friend and savior, Jesus. Once they get to know Jesus, they will have a desire to be in an intimate relationship with Christ. Once they are in that intimate relationship with Christ, we can leave it up to the Holy Spirit to work on changing their hearts.
When the Pharisees present Christ with the adulterous woman, he does not condemn her. He first saves her from those who were about to kill her. THEN, he lets her go free with the hope that she will sin no more. I believe that Christ feels the same way about gays as he does about that adulterous woman. He wants to save them from the crowd that wants to condemn them. He wants to give them a great big hug, tell them that they are loved as children of God, and tell them that he wants a relationship with them. He wants to dine at their homes, as he did with the tax collector. He wants to wash their feet. He wants to heal their life threatening illnesses. When Jesus walks into someone’s life, it’s hard for that person to go on justifying their sin for long.
Unfortunately, Jesus the man no longer walks this earth. However, his Holy Spirit is inside each and every believer, and when we dine with people, love people, and serve people, we are showing them Christ- a Christ who wants to love them more than anything!
