Now, the title of this blog may put you off a bit, stay with me and I will explain myself. I was reading an article the other day, and I wanted to cry, scream, and a few other things. Please read the ARTICLE before continuing with the entry, because it will help things make sense (it's less than a page). Not only did I read that article, but as I sat in class a couple days ago, I had a similar desire to cry, scream, etc. The professor had us go around the classroom and basically tell our life story. As part of that, we were supposed to talk about something that was a pressing issue for us. More than one person brought up their concern for how to minister to homosexuals, saying things like "I'm not sure how to deal with those people" and "You'd be amazed at how God can use them" almost as if to say that homosexuals are aliens of some kind. Being that this is one of my areas of sensitivity, because so many people I know are same-gender loving individuals and who have dealt with all kinds of less-than-positive treatment, especially in the church, I felt some type of way.
So now that we're on the same page, I want to address the title of the blog entry: Christians Don't Love. This is not meant to say that none of the Christians in the world know how to love. There are some very loving Christians who would be appalled by the actions of this group. But the point remains that there is a problematic mindset that some Christian doctrine, dogma, and ideology perpetrate to make such mindsets even possible (and to some people, justifiable and the will of God).
George Michael, a famous singer who happens to be an openly gay man, was talking about his recovery from illness and said, "Did you know that while I was fighting for my life in Austria there were a bunch of those lovely American 'Christian' organizations, who call themselves Christians for a Moral America, who were actually taking the time to pray for me to die." Reportedly, they "were wholly against the openly gay singer's survival and apparently accused Michael of having AIDS rather than pneumonia." As if that wasn't enough, the group tweeted their justification for such actions: "Pray for George Michael's demise. He has chosen a satanic lifestyle and must meet an appropriate end" and "Apparently George Michael has AIDS. Figures since he's a homosexual and it goes with the territory. Another sodomite bites the dust?"
First of all, George Michael doesn't have AIDS, so the lack of truth from a Christian organization, especially based on an outrageous stereotype is appalling. Just because he is gay does not mean that he has AIDS. Such speculation is the poisonous thinking that Jesus taught against. Second, Jesus taught that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and based on the story of the Good Samaritan, that includes people who we have been taught are impure or even enemies. Loving someone does not mean praying for their death or pronouncing judgment as you see fit for their lives. Who are we to decide what is an appropriate end for anyone, no matter what they do?
Now, I'm aware that this is a fairly extreme example, but the underlying principle is that there is a tendency to demonize people that are different or that we disagree with. Even though the two greatest commandments are to love, much of the teaching and doctrine deals with separating Christians from everyone else. And as we learned with Plessy v. Ferguson in our lessons from the Civil Rights Movement, separate but equal doesn't work, because our Western tendency is to compare different things and give them a value, causing them to have to be ranked. In any religion where we are taught that we are right and everyone else is wrong - misguided, deceived, even evil/demonic - it is nigh unto impossible to treat someone with love. It is perfectly alright to stand strong in your own beliefs, but you ought to be loving enough to allow others to love/respect people regardless of their religious leanings and/or beliefs.
So whether you agree with someone's lifestyle, religion, orientation, political stand, race, gender, denomination, or anything else that makes them different from you, God is love. God desires that Christians love others as they love themselves. If you wouldn't pray for your friend to die because they lied or because they cheated on their taxes or gossiped or any other 'sin,' then why would it be justifiable to pray that someone dies because of who they love? If you are going to claim to represent God and Jesus and all that they stand for, then you should examine what your love for your neighbor looks like, lest you become the priest and the Levite who walked by the man who needed help, acting in the very self-righteous hypocrisy that Jesus spent his ministry teaching against.
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