More than 30 years ago, one of my best friends, Kyle, dropped a bombshell that left me reeling. He told me he was gay.
At the time, I was a young, full-time youth pastor doing ministry in a cultural environment where the issue of homosexuality rarely was talked about and not well understood. The ensuing spiritual and emotional tug-of-war occasioned by Kyle’s words left me wanting desperately to love my friend. At the same time, I wondered what buttons I could push to fix Kyle and restore our friendship to the simplicity of its earlier days. Life isn’t that clean and easy, is it?
That reality came to mind when a concerned Christian mother recently approached me wondering what she and a group of other mothers could do to stop the Day of Silence observance at her local high school. The Day of Silence is an effort to address the problem of anti- lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender behavior. In effect, she and these mothers were looking for ways to live out their faith by silencing the silence so they could keep their kids safe and get on with serving God as concerned Christian parents. Again, life isn’t that clean and easy, is it?
We must wrestle with many difficult issues as we live out our calling to follow Jesus and lead kids to do the same; but the overarching issue that God prompted me to address with that mom was not homosexuality but a proper understanding of spiritual growth and Christian formation that many of us have missed.
This mother’s thinking was very similar to my own when I first started in youth ministry. It’s a way of thinking and living that equates spiritual maturity with separation from the evil and offensive influence of culture, along with separation from the people who have bought into that influence as evidenced by their values, attitudes and behaviors. Contact with these people and their beliefs—it is thought—will lead to corruption, a compromise of one’s holiness, and the adoption of ungodly attitudes and practices. We not only separate ourselves, but we think we’re protecting our kids and doing them a favor when we teach them to do the same.
One of my favorite theologians, John Stott, warns us that when we adopt and teach this approach to the world, we are adopting and teaching a “perverted doctrine.” In his great book The Contemporary Christian, Stott says that when we take this approach, we are no different than the Pharisees. He wrote, “Instead of seeking to be holy in thought, word and deed, while retaining relationships of love and care with all men, they withdrew from social contact with ‘sinners’ and despised those who did not follow suit. They became a ‘holy club,’ a pietistic enclave which virtually has contracted out of the world. They also became harsh and censorious; they had not pity for people in ignorance, sin or need.”
Another one of my favorite writers, Douglas Coupland, reveals how abrasive and non-compelling we become when we equate spiritual growth with checking out on the world. In his riveting novel Hey Nostradamus, Coupland reveals what that approach looks like to outsiders through the eyes of one of the book’s main characters, a high school senior who says, “It always seemed to me that people who’d discovered religion had both lost and gained something. Outwardly, they’d gained calmness, confidence and a look of purpose, but what they’d lost was a certain willingness to connect with unconverted souls. Looking a convert in the eyes was like trying to make eye contact with a horse. They’d be alive and breathing, but they wouldn’t be a hundred percent there anymore. They’d left the day-to-day world and joined the realm of eternal time.”
Forward or Backward?
My encounter with Kyle forced me to wrestle with who I was. I learned that just when I believed I was evidencing great growth in my love and service to Jesus, I actually was moving backward. Instead of pointing outsiders to the cross and the insiders in my care to a deeper faith, I was pointing them all in some other direction because of my misunderstanding of the proper relationship I should have with the world.
When Jesus calls us to be salt and light in the world – sheep in the midst of wolves – He is in effect calling us (as He prayed in
In hindsight, I did a lousy job of following my own advice in my relationship with Kyle. Time, distance and the pursuit of our respective lifestyles led to our separation through the years. Then, about five years ago I received word that Kyle had died of AIDS. I realized I had gotten so wrapped up in my own life and ministry that I had slowly forgotten Kyle’s life and my responsibility to minister to him. Pondering what I would have done differently in regard to Kyle subsequently shaped my response to the concerned mom. So I told her this:
I believe God has established sexuality as a good and wonderful gift that is to be experienced and celebrated with great freedom within the bounds of His order and design. Because our world is fallen and broken, there will be sinful distortions of that plan that we are to avoid. We are to teach these truths to our children without hesitation.
Banning the “Day of Silence” only deals with symptoms of deeper issues. Shouldn’t we be concerned about the hearts where those deeper issues live and from which the symptoms rise to the surface? What about the hearts from which hate and ignorance flow, especially when those hearts belong to those who claim to follow Christ?
We can’t force anyone to follow Jesus. Only God’s Spirit is able to draw people to Himself. While we can’t strong-arm people into the Kingdom of God, we can and must choose to follow Jesus ourselves. Following Jesus means facing our Pharisaical tendencies/sins head-on while loving sinners as Jesus has loved them (and us, because we’re in that group, too). Loving sinners is our calling, just as our calling is to hate and avoid sin.
Have you ever thought about acting on your rightful concern by sitting down and spending some time getting to know and listening to the kids who are planning the “Day of Silence” at your school? She paused as I guess most of us would and said, “No.” I then challenged her to find out the names of the kids, invite them to Starbucks, then listen with no agenda other than to learn, build a relationship and love them.
I’m learning that while it’s easier to wish and work away differences I might not like while separating myself, Jesus is calling me to go as His ambassador to people He’s called me to love. Then, He’ll take care of the rest.
