Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Anti-LGBTQ 'Christians" serve a different god


Conservative Christians played a significant role in the Legislature’s refusal to shield LGBTQ citizens from the indignities of discrimination. They believe God answered their prayers when legislators voted. Other Christians heard God exhort them to work harder for justice. When two voices say decidedly different things, they cannot both be attributed to one God.

This shines light on the 900-pound elephant in the sanctuary. I mean no disrespect. We are entitled to our own religious views. But, it is reasonable to acknowledge that conservative Christians and progressive Christians do not worship the same God.

Lincoln said both Northerners and Southerners invoked one God in seeking victory on the battlefield. It’s true, humans may ask one God for opposing outcomes. However, it’s not possible for one God to support two diametrically opposed causes.

Progressive and conservative Christians focus on differences over Biblical interpretation and creedal doctrine. These differences cannot explain our discord over the very nature of the Divine. We are confronted with irreconcilable views defining the existential essence of our bond with God.

The God of conservative Christianity teaches there are caveats to scriptural commandments to love your neighbor. The God of progressive Christianity sanctions none. That God opens hearts, cuts through prejudices, and places radical hospitality for all God’s children at the center of our relationship and does not ask us to fear those who are different.

Witnessing how scripture is used in their sustained campaign against the LGBTQ community. it seems reasonable to conclude that the God of conservative Christians encourages discrimination regardless of the harm. The contrast between how some and not others are called to treat God’s children with sexual orientation or identity different from our own makes it unlikely we serve the same God.

There are other related differences in voices each hears from the Divine, such as Jesus’s teaching that what we do for “the least of these,” we do for him. The two versions of Christianity diverge on a Jesus-followers duty to care for the marginalized. These are not superficial differences. They go to the heart of our relationship with the God of Creation. 

Comments made during public testimony over whether legislators should defend LGBTQ legislators, staff, and constituents from discrimination recall ancient parables establishing the centrality of loving, welcoming, and protecting the vulnerable.

It was accepted in polytheistic societies long before monotheism. Homer’s classic tale tells of Odysseus’s son Telemachus sailing the seas, searching for his lost father. His entourage happens upon an island. They know no one. The islanders “saw the strangers coming, they all stood up with open arms to greet them.” Not until they were welcomed and offered a lavish feast, did anyone ask these strangers their purpose in coming to the island.

Such lessons were not lost on ancient Hebrews as they assembled the writings of the Old Testament. Throughout, God tells us to welcome vulnerable people, cast to the margins by the dominant community. God recognizes these folks are especially susceptible to exploitation and abuse.

The God of progressive Christianity demands their protection. The Bible includes a parable about the consequences of a community’s failure to do so. Genesis 19 is the story of Sodom.

The myth provides further evidence of the divide in Christianity. Conservatives see it as judgment against homosexuals. Progressive Christians and, more importantly most Jews, to whom the story belongs, see it as God’s judgment on those who fail to offer hospitality and sanctuary to strangers.

One God countenances saying, “Love the sinner while hating the sin,” though followers believe the sinner is, in fact, the sin. The God of progressive Christians says loving one another includes caring whether people lose their livelihood or are otherwise deprived of human dignity because of how God created them.

Unlike the other, this God informs our belief that the more some of God’s children are despised by the culture, the greater our responsibility to love them as God loves us.

God cannot invoke two vastly different views and be the same God.



     






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