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Does God Hate Straight People?

Author:		Jess Austin Michalik
Posted:		4/18/2005; 7:31:38 PM
Topic:		Does God Hate Straight People?
Msg #:		144 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next:		143/146
Reads:		2187

We have recently decided to join a "blog network" and to list many "progressive Christian" sites on our page.  In no way does this mean that we necessarily agree with anything that these other sites contain....  However that may be, agreement with the "positions" of these blogs is not of the highest importance.  Instead, we feel lucky to be able to join others in the pursuit of truth and social justice and to listen to them.  For though we ourselves may be mistaken, it can never be a mistake to listen.

This said, I was a bit dismayed to read a post on a site with a very promising title this evening, Post-Modern Christian.  The author of this blog felt moved to place himself in opposition to what he takes to be the general atmosphere of simple and silent toleration of homosexual practices in modern culture.

Writes Post-Modern, "I would like to have a friend who is a practicing homosexual. Yet, if the discussion arose, how would I nicely tell my gay friend that I don’t believe that God can accept practicing homosexuality within the confines of His kingdom?"

What is sad about this is that it demonstrates the way that Jesus' teachings have fallen by the wayside of modern Christian practice.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does away with the distinction between thought and practice.

"You have heard that it was said: You shall not commit adultery.  But I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Mtt. 5:27-8).

Many Christians today say, like Post-Modern, that homosexual Christians are welcome in their churches and so forth just so long as they do not have gay sex.  Unfortunately, the Sermon on the Mount does not seem to allow for this distinction.  If Post-Modern is right and having this sort of adultery will exclude the homosexual from the kingdom, then the poor person is damned even when he or she looks at a person of the same sex lustfully, as are most of us, for few are chaste in thought.

However that may be, I suspect that what Jesus means when he speaks of fulfilling the law is that the law under Christ is internalized.  It comes to be written not on tablets of stone but those of the human heart.  This demands that we recognize that it is not so much external practice that is the essence of the law but the internal purity of the soul that is right with the Lord.

I suspect that if we were truly right with the Lord and free of sin we would not lust at all, for lust inevitably is based on the objectification of another human being.  But very very few in this world find it easy to have the chastity of Paul.

Why cast stones?  If the Sermon on the Mount has any bearing on the truth, we all commit hundreds of sins everyday.  Why pick out homosexuals…?  Why not look at your own lust?  God won't accept homosexuals into his kingdom… Why ever should he accept you?  Are you "perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48).  This indeed is what Jesus asks us to be. 

Whether we are straight or gay, most of us can recognize that lust is harmful in our lives and that it can constrain our choices and make us and others unhappy.  But prayer, with the help of grace, can little by little lead us to a better place.  Let us all seek a place beyond harming lust, but let none of us take this as an invitation to cast stones.

When we are perfect, we may indeed be entirely chaste as Paul was chaste and as many early Christians chose to be.  But as of yet, we do better to care for the inner self than to worry about the exterior and the acts of others: lest we become white-washed tombs.

All are welcome into the kingdom of heaven.  This is the whole meaning of the gospel.  All are welcome at our tables, that is the meaning of love.  For though it may be more difficult for us to get into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to fit though the eye of a needle, all is possible though God (Matt. 19:24-6).

We should keep in mind that, if God cannot welcome a homosexual into his kingdom, we are all already damned.  There is no reason to think that God judges homosexual lust any different from heteosexual lust, nor that, if he does, the balance should be in the favor of heterosexuals, who have life a little easier.