I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Today's cinematic choice was The Times of Harvey Milk. It is an excellent movie about one of the first openly gay men to be elected to public office and his subsequent assassination.

The combination of listening to Antony and The Johnsons and watching The Times of Harvey Milk has gotten me thinking a lot these days about the Christian response to alternative sexualities. Antony is a transexual of sorts (there are a lot of arguments over terms in this subject), he feels like a woman trapped in a man's body (and somewhat androgynous I think too). Hence song lyrics such as "One day I'll grow up/To be a beautiful woman/But for now I am a child/For now I am a boy."

Frankly, I feel like Christian responses to members of the LGBT community have been overwhelmingly attrocious. On the one hand, the most common approach has been nothing short of hate speech: from blatant displays like Turlington preachers wearing buttons that say "NO HOMOS" to seemingly innocuous things like acceptance of using the term "gay" to describe anything dumb or bad (e.g. "exams are so gay"). This is unnacceptable. Christians should never, ever condone oppression of anyone. One of the shockingly interesting things I gleaned from Haugen's Good News... is the awareness of injustice in its most subtle forms; injustice which is perpetrated by everyone in some way. It may be something like race, but it could even just be something like hatred of jocks or frats for no reason. Anything that involves separating "us" from "them" is just self-righteousness, which is a form of injustice.

On the other hand, the reaction from theologically liberal Christians has been equally disturbing. Rather than wrestling with the texts (Romans 1, for example) and trying to better understand the roots of alternative sexualities while maintaining a firm belief in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity (creation, the fall, the Scripture, the Gospel), it seems that this group has simply decided to throw out whatever is inconvenient. I applaud their courage to stand up and say, "It's not right to marginalize someone due to their sexual orientation." I agree completely. But it's also foolish to simply throw out the Bible because it makes you uncomfortable.

Christians need to find a middle ground. The bottom line should always be the Gospel. That should be our first objective. It shouldn't be "God will change your homosexuality!" That may or may not be true (and I believe 90% of the time it is not). It should be, "No matter what, Christ loves you." It's impossible to guilt someone into Christianity. It is possible to love someone into Christianity (of course, it's really Jesus doing the loving).

My point: if Jesus were at UF today, I believe he would be hanging out with Gator GSA and related groups.


I have had a special place in my heart recently for transgender people. I feel like they are currently the most marginalized group of people (speaking from a UF perspective). This affection started when GGSA did a campaign about bathrooms. They had a poster with a picture of the classic restroom sign (pictured at right) with something about how for a significant amount of people, this is a pretty difficult choice. I had never thought of that before.

Transgender people are often confused and lonely. Their confusion lies at the core of humanity: identity. And yet, isn't that what the Gospel is for? Aren't most of our problems as Christians related to identity crisis? Do I hide behind my job, my major, my status as "theologically right" or "pure" or "a good person"? Do I refuse to hide in Christ? I feel like the transgendered person is ripe for the harvest. The transgendered person struggles daily with the very core of their identity, right down to what bathroom to use. Who better prepared to receive the Good News that whoever they are or will be, they can be secure in Christ?

So you see, we shouldn't even be trying to address the doctrinal issues of alternative sexualities without first and foremost offering the living water to the thirsty. There will come a time when those issues will have to be addressed, and it will be difficult and partially offensive. But those conversations need to occur between friends, between family. Those conversations, like any conversation of this magnitude, cannot possibly be treated lightly. They most definitely must not be reduced to slogans on buttons or posters held up by middle-class, white, heterosexual Christian men.

I should mention, for the record, that the man who killed Harvey Milk was a white, middle-class, heterosexual, Christian man, part of "respectable society."

This is all part of a recent hypothesis that I've developed that states that Christians, which began as an underground movement of dissidents, should be looking to marginalized groups to try to get back to their roots. Where I depart from most people on this topic, though, is that I don't take the approach typical of this "social Gospel:" Jesus was just a groovy guy who wanted everyone to get along. He wasn't just a groovy guy. He was self-authenticating, he wasn't afraid to make outrageous claims to divinity. But he did stand up for prostitutes, he did love tax-collectors. I feel that in America we have become so used to being the majority (whatever that means) that we no longer have a place in our hearts for the prostitutes, the truly "shocking" groups of people that Jesus loved. We've managed to "tame" the homeless and the sick, but that's not where our mission ends. Who are the groups of people that most people are afraid of, or hate for no reason, or try to reduce to something less than a human being? Go after them. Jesus certainly did.

Peace,
Sam
P.S. I highly recommend Flannery O'Connor's story "Revelation" on a related topic.