As Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect: Brennan Manning, Jesus, and the Homosexual Community
From Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning…
“‘But what should the Christian posture be toward the gay community?’ one evangelical demanded of me. ‘In one of Jesus’ parables,’ I replied, ‘He enjoined us to let the wheat and the weeds grow together. Paul caught this spirit when he wrote in 1 Corinthians, ‘Stop passing judgment and wait upon the Lord’s return.’ The sons and daughters of Abba are the most nonjudgmental people. They get along famously with sinners. Remember the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect?’ In Luke, the same verse is translated, ‘Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.’ Biblical scholars say that the two words, perfect and compassionate, can be reduced to the same reality. Conclusion: To follow Jesus in His ministry of compassion precisely defines the biblical meaning of being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.’”
This passage resonates with me as I look around and see a nation where Christians refuse to allow gay people to have the same marriage rights as they do because of the believed “sanctity” held within those bonds while these same people just give a flippant eye role to Kim Kardashian’s latest mockery of it. Saying that you love a person and then denying them the rights that you enjoy doesn’t work. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s like saying a slaveholder is okay as long as he says he loves his slaves.
The debate over whether homosexuality itself is a sin or not has grown tiresome and gotten no one anywhere. Perhaps because it’s a strange argument to have–sinners who sin debating sinners who sin on whether or not sinners who sin are, in fact, sinning. The answer is yes. Homosexuals are sinners. As are heterosexuals, bisexuals, transexuals, and metrosexuals. We’re all sinners. Jesus is the Great Equalizer. We are forced to each meet each other exactly where the other is in life. One thing I think we can all agree on as we page through the Gospels is that Jesus cared much less about what sinners were doing and more about how “the religious” (also sinners) treated their fellow sinners. So perhaps we’re asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. Should we be asking if homosexuals are denying Christ by being gay or should we be asking ourselves if we’re denying Christ by how we respond to the homosexual community?
Who is more in danger of not following Christ?
