I sure hope Cody Sanders has thick skin. He’s in for one heck of a beating after publishing an op-ed over at the Associated Baptist Press asking if common ground can be found on the issue of homosexuality.
The common ground he proposes? Liberal and conservative churches joining forces to end violence against gays and lesbians:
This common ground might stem from a basic recognition that LGBT people are created in the image of God coupled with the faith commitment that God desires life and health, not violence and destruction, for all of God’s children. This commitment to life and health for all may serve to bring both affirming and non-affirming churches together for the purpose of ending senseless violence against LGBT people. It wouldn’t necessarily mean that these diverse churches change their theological perspectives on sexuality — that is up for ongoing debate. It would, instead, mean coming together around an issue about which diverse churches may be able to agree: namely, that violence against any human being is wrong and should be stopped, and that stopping it is important to the church.
I heartily applaud Sanders’ bold stand as he asks mainly the conservative side to step up and let the world know that while they may hate the “sin,” they can certainly find their way clear to actually love the “sinner,” as they insist they do.
Alas, one only need look as far as the comments to see that Sanders has greatly miscalculated the mercy of his audience. Bobby McCord responds (with his own spelling errors preserved):
Their is no comman ground between sin and righteousness, lost and saved, right and wrong. A saved life is a changed life. You are not God’s child until you receive Christ as Savior (John 1:12) When you do receive Him you will be a new creature. There is no way you can point to God’s Word and say we should accept a lifestyle that God’s Word calls an abomination, as Christian behavior. All the hate crime legislation does is give reprobates legitamacy. Homosexuality is not only a sin, it is an abomination, and it is a symptom of a reprobate society.
Mark Osgatharp echoes Bobby and goes a step further claiming that compassion is a tool of the devil:
All such calls for cooperation between the lovers of truth and the minions of Satan are just a way for Satan to make himself look compassionate and harmless and to infect the churches of the living God with heresy.
Perhaps Sanders didn’t pay attention when the federal hate crimes bill was being debated before its final passage by Congress. If he had, he would have known that those who oppose homosexuality have absolutely no problem with them being harassed, beaten, or killed. In fact, those right wingers opposed to the law, like the pastors who gathered in Washington last month to protest the law, fear it will interfere with their own penchant for verbally harassing, beating and killing the spirit of any gay or lesbian within earshot. Former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt of PrayInJesusName.com read from Romans:
“And they that commit such things are worthy of death.”
No common ground there, I fear.
Even evangelical prince-of-a-guy Rick Warren will call abortion a “holocaust” but will decline to speak out against a proposed Ugandan law that will imprison and even execute known gays and lesbians (and many more simply suspected or accused of being gay or lesbian). In this instance he says, according to Newsweek’s Lisa Miller, that he’s not “called” to speak out against such things because it’s not his country, so what does it matter to him? Yeah, Rick, I remember that passage where Jesus said, “Just preach to the locals. Who cares about the world?”
Given the overwhelming evidence, Mr. Sanders, I believe your courageous call for conservative Christians to, at the very least, condemn violence against gays and lesbians will fall on deaf ears. I hope, though, that you will continue to be a voice in the right wing wilderness and that your idealism will survive the onslaught of conservative Christian hatred that is coming your way, because honestly the whole Christian community need more thinkers like you.
