Timothy Kincaid is a “blogger friend” who I’ve had the privilege of engaging on a couple of different blogs: Warren Throckmorton and ExGayWatch. He regularly writes on Box Turtle Bulletin. Timothy is a gay Christian who I have found to be insightful and respectful. Timothy wrote this piece as a comment on another blog and I hope that it will be helpful to the readers of ‘Bridging the Gap’: p.s. Timothy is American – but I think us Canadians have a few take-aways here too eh?
Regarding the question as to how best reach gay persons for Christ, I’m not sure I have an answer for that question, but I do know some things to avoid if one has any real genuine desire to reach gay people for Christ:
1. Don’t demand the impossible.
Telling gay people that they shouldn’t be gay is probably going to be about as successful a witness tool as telling Asians they shouldn’t be Asian.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in orientation. Or if you think the Bible talks about behavior not identity. Or if you can reference a whole list of folks who have “walked away from homosexuality”. Or even if you believe homosexuality is nothing but an addiction, or sin, or the result of some root cause, or a lack of paternal attention, or a demonic spirit.
If you want to reach gay people, it doesn’t matter what you believe at all.
Gay people generally believe that the direction of their attractions is innate and immutable. To ask them not to be gay is, to their way of thinking, preposterous.
This is not to say that you must give up your religious convictions. But rather that you should allow God to guide others to His will.
Remember, the reason for gay persons to come to Christ is not to become un-gay or even to avoid Hell. The reason for gay persons to come to Christ is to have a relationship with God.
In my opinion the smartest response to orientation is to introduce God’s love and grace and simply say that God wants his children to grow into the life He has for them. And then let God direct them.
And if God leads some gay people to some direction other than the plan YOU have for them, well you can take it up with Him.
2. Don’t coerce conversion.
Jews today still resent the efforts of Christians to convert them in the Spanish Inquisition at the point of a sword. Gays don’t feel much different about current efforts to instill repressive and discriminatory laws. They believe that Christians only want to be kind and loving to Christian people and that they will punish you if you are not.
Let’s talk some truth.
Behind every effort to treat gay people differently in this country is language about Sin and Abomination. Gay people observe Christianity to be a threat to their freedoms and sometimes to their very lives. (Yes, some “Christians” use death language).
You may “love the sinner, hate the sin”. You may think homosexuality is a dangerous lifestyle. You may have pity for the person trapped and not want to enable their destruction. You may think that homosexuality is a cancer that will destroy the culture and the nation. You may think that this is a sin that makes God nauseous and that God will rain judgment on the nation that doesn’t harshly punish such filth.
None of that matters.
At all.
Currently, gay people experience their interaction with Christianity as being full of hatred. And the fault lies entirely with the Church (yeah, it really does).
When you seek to harm the livelihood of someone, when you tax them more, when you take away their children, when you deny their ability to serve their country, when you “would never vote for” them, when you lie about their “lifestyle”, when you make entirely bogus claims about their mortality, when you support discrimination against them in business and housing, when you pass laws to remove their health insurance. When you just treat them with contempt.
These are all things that have been done in the name of Christianity. And they are all experienced as hateful.
If you really genuinely want to reach gays for Christ, you cannot do so in a manner that looks like hatred to the people you are trying to reach. You cannot be coercive.
If you care more about reaching gays for Christ than you do about the culture war, you will give up these efforts. Because you cannot reach gays while simultaneously harming them.
And if the culture is destroyed and the nation crumbles, take it up with God. After all, He didn’t call you to protect nations but to win souls.
-WG
Very true. Even though I didn’t agree with everything, I wish these kinds of statements would come from Exodus and other ex-gay ministries (not that I don’t have a soft spot for Timothy, of course). 😉
This is awesome. This is much better than much of the stuff Ive seen about reaching gays for Christ. God said it is a sin but so is adultery and idolatry, something christians are often guilty of, yet they dont hate adulterers or idolaters the way they hate gays.
Thank you! There is little guidance in my church about this. I recently witnessed to a woman who we see weekly in our homeless outreach. She claimed that she was gay and very much in love with a woman and didn’t want to give herself to Christ until she had chosen to give up her lover. She clearly knew all of the scriptures (lost sheep anyone?) and was adamant that because the bible said so, she was living in sin. I was flummoxed. I kind of threw up my hands and stepped aside, but then went back to her and reminded her that God wants a relationship with all of us, and that Jesus said so long as we believe in him we should have ever lasting life. Your post supports that, and I feel much better.
If you approached all sin this way, there would be no need for the church…
I’m going to try to respond to the last “Anonymous” comment, posted August 29, 2011. Anonymous, I think your concern is actually the point of this blog post. I think the point is that the church is not SUPPOSED to view its job as pointing out people’s sin. If you read the New Testament for how to deal with sin, almost all of it talks about BELIEVERS who sin, not non-Christians. The church’s job is to attract everyone to a personal relationship with Christ. Only after that relationship has been established can we gently point people toward holier living, and even then only after we have removed the plank from our own eye.
And actually, I would say that the issue of homosexuality IS in fact a unique issue to respond to. There is more emotional baggage attached, with a longer history of pain and shame inflicted by the church. Therefore, if Christians are going to err in this case, I believe we should err on the side of grace.
A lot said that is important but you only covered in greater detail a lot of don’ts for Christians, and the dos stuff was quite shallow. We would agree that the gay community needs to experience God’s love through us. Let’s also remember how we all found God. It’s when after we recognized our sinful state that He gave us the grace to hear and respond to His invitation to come to Him. It’s the classic invitation He gave to the crowd in Matthew. He said ” come to me,learn of me, basically do life with Me, and You will find rest for your souls. When a sinner recognizes his need for the Savior and acts on it. Christ brings the change in their life. This was to a crowd that signified every lifestyle imaginable. But the invitation is to all. Our treatment of authentically loving the unsaved no matter what their life style is, is Christ like. That’s what Christ calls us to do. Be a friend to everyone,love them authentically, and in that process of relationship we must guard ourselves against being hypocritical and love them as Jesus does, praying hoping that the time will come when the Holy Spirit using His word, using believers as His instrument of grace will call gay people to repent and believe the Gospel. Love to all.
Grace. Loving others (gay & straight) as yourself. Be Jesus to all. Christ’s message to all: Repent and believe the Gospel. Christ speaking to mixed crowd in the street in the book of Matthew. Calls out to them all (diverse crowd , every life style, open and in secret) He calls out”come to me ” Learn of Me. You and I and the scriptures thorough the power of the Holy Spirit is how God reaches people – gay and straight. Our job is to show love and grace. Build a relationship of unconditional love to others as so Christ has loved us. All the stuff written about earlier in the blog about how gays perceive hatred is valid, but let’s remember and focus MORE that it is by our love that people will know we are His. Don’t be a hypocrite be authentic no matter if other believers look down their noses for your stand and love for gays, the poor, what others may identify as untouchable. LOVE anyway. Love to all Joe Ortiz Savannah GA