Grace

Half a dozen times or more in the past couple weeks, I’ve been confronted with the idea of how Christians view homosexuality and how we should respond to the growing acceptance of it in our culture. The most recent incident involved an email forward applauding an abrasive, sarcastic letter written by a Christian to a major television network after a recent pro-homosexual episode of a popular show.

A few years ago I, too, would have applauded this man’s “courage” in “standing up for the truth”. Today it just made me sad. Based on the defensive and equally sarcastic reply from the network representative, the confrontational letter did absolutely nothing but validate the world’s view of Christians as narrow-minded, unloving bigots. Let's just say that the representative was less than compelled to re-think his position.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for standing up for the truth. But I think it can be done with winsomeness and grace, and especially with love toward fellow sinners made in the image of God for whom Christ died. I wonder sometimes if our goal is to prove our “rightness” and gain political clout, or if our real motive is what it should be—to graciously share the gospel in a way that will allow God to change hearts and lives, no matter how the sinner has transgressed. I’m afraid we lose sight sometimes of our own brokenness and need for God’s grace, simply because we see our sins as less than the sin of homosexuality or some other behavior that repulses us. We often have a double standard when it comes to sin and grace.

I’m not an expert on this, so I’ll leave my thoughts at that and provide a few links to those with greater wisdom than I. Let’s just examine our heartsand our resuting actions, and extend to a broken world God's love and grace.

Award-winning article by Barbara Curtis

Loving Homosexuals

Exodus International

Dennis Jernigan's Story

Homosexuality: Speaking the Truth in Love by Mardi Keyes