I am a member of the Evangelical Covenant Church. It is a relatively small denomination compared to others, but we have a voice in much of North America and in several countries around the world. I began attending a Covenant church when I was 6 years old, after my family moved to Connecticut. I was raised there, came to Christ there, confirmed there, and made some of the longest lasting and deepest friendships of my life there. I attended North Park University, the Covenant denomination's liberal arts school, and I attended and worked at Pilgrim Pines, one of many Covenant summer camps. I admire the Evangelical Covenant for their willingness to discuss issues more than other denominations. I am grateful for the role the Covenant church has played, and will continue to play in my life.
This past January, a friend of mine from the Covenant church I grew up in, along with my former pastor and other supporters, started this blog. My friend is gay and also a pastor and member of the Evangelical Covenant Church. I have always known him to be a man of faith and a man who actively pursues God in his life. He is someone that I respect and admire for so many reasons. I care about him and his family and what they go through, matters to me. I am so proud of him for being who he is, with no apologies.
I had heard of this blog when it first started, but hadn't gotten around to reading it until this past week. Once I started reading the stories, I couldn't stop. I read every single entry in one sitting. I have very few Christian gay friends that I am close with; that I know of. I cannot claim to understand what it must be like to know that you are a true follower of Christ but those who are your spiritual supporters do not accept all of who you are. I don't understand that from experience. But I think that anyone can understand the feeling of being alone. And this is what I have been reading. How alone they have felt in the one place where they shouldn't be alone.
I want to support my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters so that they do not feel alone. I want to begin the discussion among all my Christian friends in some way because it is important. I have seen so many Christian people in my experiences in Christian settings gloss over the issue or speak of it with disdain or say "hate the sin and love the sinner." Heck, I have even said that before. Personally, I have struggled with the idea of homosexuality as a sin for a long time. Like many others, I had been brought up in the church to believe that being attracted to same sex lovers was bad, sinful, and "good Christians" aren't that way. But in the past 5 or 6 years, I have begun to believe otherwise. I have met people who are gay or lesbian and I have heard their stories. I watched a good friend of mine deal with rejection from others because her brother was gay and a Christian. And I hurt for them. I hurt that they have been rejected when they should have been accepted. The best I feel I can do is show my support and spread the word. Because talking about it is important.
Regardless of what you believe, whether you are a Christian or not, I encourage you to read this blog. I would love for my non-Christian gay friends to see this blog to know that God does not reject them. Neither do I. And neither do several other Christians out there. You are not alone.
Erin, this is such an important topic and I just pray that as time goes on more and more Christians can be thoughtful and loving about this (I've also enjoyed Coming Out Covenant as well). This was always one of my biggest challenges as a Christian, trying to understand the hate and fear behind this issue. I wasn't able to syncronize my beliefs on the topic with what I was being told from various Christians. I questioned it at North Park, and it became even more clear to me while in Seminary that it just didn't jive with the God that I believe in. A lot of it comes down to biblical interpretation (and the more I learned, the more I realized how inaccurate the so-called reasons are), but then when you realize the context of all the Scripture that reference this, and you take a wider perspective, it's clear to me that God doesn't hate anyone. God made people in a variety of forms; gay, lesbian, bisexual, trangender, included. I've always had a couple of gay friends but while in California, I got to know a lot of gay and lesbian pastors. And you know what? They are just as amazing, just as intelligent, just as spirt-filled, just as loving, just as dynamic, just as thoughtful and just as service-oriented as their heterosexual counterparts (and in some cases, more so!). There is no way that someone could ever use a verse in the Bible to tell me any differently or discredit how gifted and amazing these ministers are. And my God? My God believes in love. People are always the ones who make rules about who you can love, where and how. Those are not Gods rules, those are "our" rules based on fear and ignorance. My God made us to love each other and take care of each other, plain and simple. And that is my final answer.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tracey! Let's keep this conversation going...
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