Angie's Aim

It’s time for this blog series to bow gracefully and leave the stage. There will likely be several curtain calls down the road, but this particular performance is over. And what a gracious audience! I am blessed beyond compare. So how can we sum up all we’ve talked about?  Well…

You can get caught up in discussing the origins of homosexuality.

You can get caught up in discussing whether or not sexual orientation can be changed.

You can get caught up in discussing gay marriage.

You can get caught up in many worthy conversations in a way that keeps you from being caught up in Jesus Christ.

For Christians, all of these conversations are unproductive if you are not seeking to have the character of Jesus Christ formed within you and the Holy Spirit leading you in a way that is pleasing to your Father God. Being right doesn’t get you anywhere if it looks like this:

 - Fred Phelps (of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka , KS ) is infamous for cultivating inexcusable hatred toward gay people. If you are attracted to the same gender - no discussion, no debate. Hell-bound. Your fate is sealed (and that would include us as well, for even having these conversations!). He has been a driving force behind protests at funerals and carrying signs that say, “God hates fags.” Officially listed as a hate group, he and his followers may be farther out there than most, but he’s had plenty of help from a few prominent celebrity evangelists.

 - After the September 11, 2001 attacks Jerry Falwell said on the 700 Club, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen” to which Pat Robertson concurred.

 - Robertson has described feminism as a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

 - In mid-September 2004, Jimmy Swaggart, in a politically charged sermon, joked that he would kill a gay man. “I’m trying to find the correct name for it… this utter absolute asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. …I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”

Although the God-followers I know and associate with would never ever spew such hatred and insensitivity, nonetheless these are the pictures of Christianity that come to mind for many gay people.

At the very least, I hope I’ve convinced many of you to use redemptive language toward homosexuality (as a sin among sins rather than a sin above sins) for the sake of those who feel SSA and do not act on it because they believe it to be sin. We desperately need to rise above and be the body of Christ to each other so that we can be a witness to the world…

That witness is you. You have a unique way to reflect what God looks like to the world. It’s different than mine.

1 Peter 4:10-11

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever.

Amen .

That’s all she wrote!