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Rod - The experience that
Rod -
The experience that I’ve had suggests that you’re onto something.
Unpacking this: I think we all agree that (a) gays/lesbians need love and compassion from the church, and (b) there should, at some point, be some sort of communication that explains that the love and compassion - that are being freely doled out, with no strings attached - does not imply an approval of their lifestyle.
That’s nice and fine and theoretically tidy. Now let’s talk about experience.
Having been in the whole “classical musician” scene for a chunk of my life, all the theorizing about how to interact with gays/lesbians pretty quickly runs the reality of having to share a music stand with someone that’s gay.
In all the interactions with gays/lesbians that I’ve had - and there has been a quite a few of them, including some very close friendships - there has never, ever, been an issue about them not knowing that Christians do not approve their lifestyle. It’s been my experience that, for better or for worse, that has always been perfectly clear and communicated prior to anything I could have done. The problem is that (b) has been done, not only before (a), but completely without the compassion that should accompany both the (a) and (b) part.
If we should be doing (a) before (b) - which is something that we all seem to agree on anyway - how much more should we be doing this if Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have, in their infinite wisdom, already taken care of communicating the lack of approval part?
I know that (b) is important to communicate, and, like Rod, I’m not suggesting that Sojourn condone homosexuality. The experience I’ve had, however, is that it’s extremely unlikely that it’s inadvertently not going to be communicated. Not communicating that part of the message isn’t the problem, here.
- garrett
__________________________- garrett (golfsierra.org/blog)