Any Other Word?

Any other word.

I challenge anyone to support either a theology or logical rationale for the rejection of LGBT people by the church.  Consider the following arguments for rejecting gay people.  Would the rationale make sense if we used any other word besides “gay”?

This article was also featured on theOOZE at:  http://theooze.com/culture/replace-gay-with-any-other-word/

Rationale #1: Being gay is a sin.  The Bible says it’s wrong.  Therefore, a gay person cannot be a Christian.

Replace gay with:

• unkind, judgmental, selfish, greedy, hateful, jealous, lustful 
• drug-addicted or alcoholic 
• elitist, over-ambitious, self-absorbed, egotistical 
• <fill in your top 10 sins here> 
• human!

Replace gay with any other word and the rationale doesn’t hold up.  Can you think of any other word where this argument makes sense?  If you say that sinners cannot be Christians, then there are no Christians.

Rationale #2: Being gay is a choice.  Therefore, a gay person cannot be a Christian. 

Again, replace gay or “a gay person” with:

• Republican, Democrat 
• Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, monk, hermit 
• pro-choice, pro-life 
• homeless, jobless, hungry
• in debt, debt-free 
• an engineer, a doctor, a masseuse, a travel agent 
• a prostitute, a loan shark, a bank robber, an axe-murderer

The only words that make any sense in this sentence would be “non-Christian” or something similar that implies the person is not a Christian (e.g., Muslim, atheist, etc.).  A person that chooses not to be a Christian, is NOT a Christian.  That’s it! 

You can define “being a Christian” in various ways (having faith in Jesus and the Bible, being accepted by God, liking Christian traditions, whatever) and there’s no other choice you could make that would disqualify you from being a Christian.  We believe that a person makes a choice for faith, and that its a free gift from God, right?  Certainly an “axe-murderer” would most likely not agree with Christian ideals but we could have a long, heated theological debate about whether the axe-murderer could be accepted by God in the end if he tried to be an axe-murdering Christian.  Probably the axe-murderer would get a better deal from Christians than the gay person in most circles!  Not sure about the pro-choice person -- I suppose that could be a close tie with being gay.

Rationale #3:  Gay people are just born that way.  Therefore, a gay person cannot be a Christian. 

Replace gay with:

• blond-haired, brown-haired, brown-eyed, blue-eyed 
• short, tall, fat, skinny 
• white, black, Hispanic, <fill in your ethnicity or nationality here> 
• physically handicapped, mentally handicapped, mentally ill, child with a birth defect or disease 
• introverted, extroverted, <fill in your personality traits here> 
• smart, dumb, <fill in your intelligence level here!> 
• upper-class, lower-class, <fill in your economic status here!> 
• male, female, human !

The argument about whether gay people are born gay or choose a life-style of homosexuality is irrelevant to faith or being a Christian.  If only certain classes of people can be Christians, then being Christian is not a choice at all! 

How about this one:

Rationale #4:  I don’t like gay people.  Therefore, a gay person cannot be a Christian. 

You get the point.  Doesn’t work with that word or any other word either.  But it’s probably the most honest statement of all.

I have heard these arguments all my life, and blindly accepted them.  But do we ever stop to question whether the argument itself makes any sense?  What’s the sense in arguing something when the logic is flawed to begin with.  In that type of argument, we will always lose!  

It’s like when my 8-year old boy argues with me as to why he should be able to eat candy for breakfast.  He’s convinced, but his logic is laughable!  I would be embarrassed to support an irrational point that everyone else can see as laughable.  It makes Christians look ignorant!  Can’t we hear our own words and tell when they don’t make sense?

In the end it just doesn't matter if we like it, or agree with it, or think its a sin or a life-style -- the rationale of rejection just doesn't work.  It's better to just call it hate.

So, once again, I challenge anyone to find a rationale for rejecting LGBT people.  Can you think of anything that doesn’t fall apart if you replace “gay” with any other word?  

If you can’t think of one, then maybe an apology would be a better choice.  We have hated gay people long enough, and they don’t deserve it.  What’s worse: being hateful, or being gay?  If they can't be Christians, then maybe we’re not Christians, either.


Bradley D. 


Related Posts:
Hello Evangelicals!

Dear Pastor, Please Invite the Gay
A Letter to the Unaccepted
Forward Progress 4: The Good News of Grace

Is this a cool church or what?

Check out Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis...

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A Holistic Missional Christian Community in Minneapolis

Solomon’s Porch is a Holistic Missional Christian Community that meets in a building located at 100 West 46th Street in Minneapolis Minnesota.

Solomon’s Porch is a community seeking to live the dreams and love of God in the way of Jesus as a benefit and blessing to the world. As part of this effort, we maintain a meeting space in South Minneapolis but we are very aware that our community exists wherever the people of Solomon’s Porch find themselves.

The people of our community are from varied backgrounds and hold a wide-range of perspectives, and all are welcome.

We welcome you to join us in person at any of our gatherings, meals or conversations. We know that entering into an active and engaged community can be difficult for some people and want to extend our invitation for your to be part of our community.

This church is a church of people, not an event created by the leaders. We hope and desire to help you make your dreams come to life. So if you have a ministry idea, a community idea, a worship idea, please share it.

Please know that Solomon’s Porch welcomes you.

Narrative-Historical Theology

A really useful article about how to interpret the Bible. I wish more Christians would embrace this and realize that a more open mind leads to real truth, not to watered-down truth. The "easy" interpretation that doesn't require any work or thinking is not going to lead to any new insight into spiritual things.

Towards a useful narrative-historical theology

"On this blog and in the books I have written in the last few years I have argued for an evangelical self-understanding that expresses its fidelity to scripture by means of what I think is most usefully classified as a narrative-historical hermeneutic. What I mean by this is that the theological content of the Bible, and of the New Testament in particular, in its various forms, is primarily meaningful—and sometimes only meaningful—in the context of the unfolding but circumscribed story of a people that claimed to be heirs of the promises made to Abraham.The theological content of the Bible, therefore, is not a body of free-floating abstract truth that means the same now as it meant then. Even at its most generalized it represents, in the first place, a dynamic engagement with history and is subject to the contingencies and constraints of history. "

The Open Church Initiative

the Open Church initiative

progressive Christianity for the global neighborhood

Hello all!  I am starting a new project called the Open Church Initiative.  The purpose is to start a discussion, and set a "Trajectory" for the church to embrace a more open-minded approach to the Bible and to other people, in order to truly partner with God to bring the kingdom of heaven to the world we live in.

We're on Facebook!  Contribute to the conversation at:

Open Church Initiative FB page

I have a goal and a vision of creating a collaborative document that describes an "open" church.  I need your help!  Please comment or email.  What are the core beliefs?  How can local churches participate?

To start with, I would also appreciate any comments and feedback on the Core Values and Beliefs, below.  Take a look and help make it better.  

Thanks!  Brad

Core Values and Beliefs

In this note, the core values and beliefs of the Open Church initiative are described.  They are intended to be as broad as possible to lower the barrier to entry across a broad range of faith backgrounds, while casting a vision of where the church is going.  Think of each value as a “Trajectory”, a path toward a loftier vision.  If you are agreeing to join us on this path, to explore where it will lead, then you are a part of the Open Church initiative.  There is no hurdle or target you must achieve to accept these values, as long as you are willing to embrace the direction they are leading.  "Trajectory" not "Destination".

Open Mind

The Bible represents the story of God’s interaction with people through certain times in history, and this interaction continues today even in our own lives.  With an Open Mind, we seek to understand God and truth itself through these interactions.  We listen more than speak, we embrace our own limited experience and view of reality, we accept other viewpoints as valid, and we value discussions.  We apply our Mind to grapple with the mysteries of God, and embrace faith as guiding the Mind instead of limiting it by forcing blind acceptance of facts and ideals.  We view God’s revelation of himself to people as something he completely controls and may choose to increase at any time in history.  We view God as the primary worker for and force behind change, truth, and the relationship between himself and people.  We view God’s Mind as deliberate, thoughtful, inquisitive, creative, complex, and unknowable except as he chooses to reveal it.  Our Mind was created by him, and in many ways is similar to his.  With an Open Mind, we can listen to God and to each other and grow in our understanding of truth.  

Open Arms

The Bible teaches us of God’s hand which is open in an offer of friendship and relationship with us.  It shows God’s immense patience with us in spite of our flaws, and acceptance of all those that call upon him.  When Jesus came, he taught lessons against elitist religious systems that created barriers to acceptance.  He taught that judging others is unjust.  He taught that only he has the authority to judge, and then he used that authority to open up grace to all people through his inclusive, pervasive work to defeat evil and death by dying on the cross.  To follow his example we must be generously, deliberately, boldly welcoming to all people, setting the example for the rest of the world in our ability to appreciate diversity.  This Openness cuts across all barriers including gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, tradition, sexual orientation, ideals, and life choices -- people we agree with and people we don't.  We do not believe that the Bible is correctly understood and utilized to create barriers of acceptance due to differences, whether those differences occur by choice, by ideals or by birth.  Instead, we believe that God calls us to a higher standard where we must accept all people as we are in fact accepted by him in spite of our own flaws, choices, ideals and uniqueness.  In fact, we believe that God values our differences and is able to use them to allow us unique opportunities to further his kingdom.  Even harder than loving our enemies, is loving those we don't understand.

Open Eyes

The Bible teaches of principles that guide the lives of believers during this life on this Earth and with the people around us.  These principles show us how to resist evil, to make right choices, to fight injustice, to feed the hungry, to aid those in need, to liberate those in chains, and to spread God’s grace to all people.  As the church, we take responsibility for the truth that we carry, and we take ownership of our unique task to build God’s kingdom on this Earth.  We Open our Eyes to the world around us, to the pain and need that is evident in every community and corner of the world.  We join forces with other believers to take a stand, to organize, to invest, to influence, and to lead, in order to achieve tangible improvements in the quality of life and knowledge of God’s goodness in this world.  We Open our Eyes to see that a kingdom of ideals and faith alone is not effective in taking care of our responsibility.  We choose to care and choose to act, driven by our ideals and faith.  We choose to implement God’s love and not only to proclaim it.  We view the Great Commission as not only a call to proclaim the message of Jesus, but also to act on it, bringing God's goodness to every community, nation and corner of the Earth.  

Open Spirit

The Bible teaches us of God’s desire to relate to people.  We believe that God’s ultimate desire and call for us is to respond to him by opening our spirit to accept him and by relating to him.  We believe in an active and present God that longs to and indeed will, interact with us in our daily lives, guiding us and working for our good and for the good that we can bring to others.  We believe that God shares truth with us through his connection to our spirit.  To hear his truth and direction we must be Open to him.  We must view his working as current and not just described in stories of the past.  We cannot appreciate him today by only relating to stories of yesterday.  God can and will guide us in new directions, new revelations, and new truths that were not available to people before.  God simply calls us to respond to him, with an Open Spirit, and to engage in intimate relationship with him.  Through this relationship, God will bring us to a place of spiritual maturity where we better understand his truth, act more consistently for good instead of evil, and more readily accept others as he accepts them.

Open Choice

We are created beings, designed by God.  In his design, God endowed us with a creative mind that is capable of complex choices involving facts, feelings, and spiritual ideals, so that we can justly lead the course of our lives to bring about his goodness in our relationships and interaction with the world.  We have frequent choices Open to us, that may have long-terms consequences in affecting other people for good or evil.  This creates the opportunity for sin, which is broadly understood from the Bible as the evil things we do to each other.  Therefore it creates a responsibility for us to use our choices to bring good into the world, to fight injustice, and to speak the truth.  We choose to respond to God through intimate relationship, or to avoid him and act in our own interest.  God designed us this way, as a path to creating the realities of Love, Freedom, Righteousness, and Relationship, none of which would be possible without freedom of Choice.  If God’s highest calling is intimate relationship, his greatest gift to us is freedom to choose that relationship.

Open Future

The Bible describes an unpredictable story, based on actions of an unpredictable God.  If we lived in a past time, we could not have, through wise interpretation of scripture, ever predicted or imagined the world as it now exists.  God has plans, but he does not choose to reveal them in a clear way through prophets or documents.  We see that we are endowed with freedom of choice, so we estimate that God’s plans for us are largely determined by our own choices, whether on an individual level or on a community, national or global scale.  To provide a clear example, if the world’s people make a choice to mitigate cancer, AIDS, and other diseases, they will invest time and money into research that will fight these diseases.  Our choices change the future as we find treatments and cures!  By searching for lower cost solutions (and compassionate aid) we make those treatments and cures available to more people.  God’s role as the author of all truth, and as the voice of goodness and freedom in the world, should not be underestimated.  We don’t do good things in spite of God’s work, we do it through God’s work.  Therefore it is our responsibility to answer the needs of the world through planning for a better future.  We need a comprehensive, serious vision of a world with less hunger, disease, slavery, pain, and injustice.  We can help lead the world to this brighter future, partnering with anyone that will join us, and by doing so help bring about the kingdom of God on Earth.  

The Theology of Freedom

Freedom is essential to the nature of God.  Jesus came to free everyone who suffers (Luke 4:18).

God in his freedom, made and makes choices about how to interact with us, (created us, loves us, relates to us, came to Earth in the flesh as Jesus, involves himself in our lives, answers our requests, shows us his wisdom, connects to us through the Holy Spirit).

God in his freedom, made us in his own image, a picture of Freedom.  We can choose to relate to God, choose to care about others, choose to be unselfish, choose to grow.     In his design, God endowed us with a creative mind that is capable of complex choices involving facts, feelings, and spiritual ideals.

Freedom in the gospel: The gospel message proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, and others, was essentially a proclamation of Liberation, of freeing the captives, of opening the mind to a new truth that frees us, opening the keys to the kingdom of heaven where we are free and privileged as God's children.

Freedom is what we offer to others when we accept them unconditionally, when we care about their point of view, their thoughts, their needs.  Freedom is when we stand up for injustice and free others from oppression, hate, unfair expectations, unethical work practices, exploitation, literal chains.

Freedom is all of those things: the choices we make, the nature we were given, the authority of God to offer salvation, the liberation we receive under God's spirit, the love we show others, our relationship with God, and the kingdom of heaven itself.

Freedom is choices.  God designed us this way, as a path to creating the realities of Love, Freedom, Righteousness, and Relationship, none of which would be possible without freedom of Choice.  If God’s highest calling is intimate relationship, his greatest gift to us is freedom to choose that relationship, and the freedom to make the world a better place by liberating others!

The opposite of Freedom?  Slavery, for one.  But also judgment, control, elitism, hate, prejudice, closed social systems, rejection, bigotry.  Religion itself can be a system of control rather than a liberating force.  But as God-lovers, Christ-believers, Spirit-followers and as the global church of God's children, we can fight injustice, and by doing do, partner with God to bring his kingdom on Earth.  

¹⁶Jesus went back to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as usual he went to the meeting place on the Sabbath. When he stood up to read from the Scriptures, ¹⁷he was given the book of Isaiah the prophet. He opened it and read,    ¹⁸"The Lord's Spirit
   has come to me,
   because he has chosen me
   to tell the good news
   to the poor.
   The Lord has sent me
   to announce freedom
   for prisoners,
   to give sight to the blind,
   to free everyone
   who suffers,
    ¹⁹and to say, `This is the year
   the Lord has chosen.' "
    ²⁰Jesus closed the book, then handed it back to the man in charge and sat down. Everyone in the meeting place looked straight at Jesus.
    ²¹Then Jesus said to them, "What you have just heard me read has come true today."

(Luke 4: 16-21), CEV

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?

This radical Christian's ministry for the poor, The Simple Way, has gotten him in some trouble with his fellow Evangelicals. We asked him to address those who don't believe.

By Shane Claiborne

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/shane-claiborne-1209#ixzz1TOhtHZJt

The Call Goes Out for a More Open Church

by Brad D.

Last week I put out a call for repentance for the church, in the article, Church in a Trance: Full-Length Article, where I called the church to grow along the lines of Responsibility, Acceptance, Freedom, and Response.  

Churches of all traditions can respond to this call if they are open to it.  The call is going out for a more open church:

Open Eyes: Open our eyes to the world that we live in, and how to work with God to make it a better place, transforming it into his kingdom.  Open our eyes to injustice, pain and need, and take action as God's representatives and partners.  Open our eyes to the truth that we as a church have often neglected our responsibility to the world.

Open Arms: Open our arms to people because they belong to God and not because they adhere to our ideals and stereotypes.  Accept people because God accepts us and them.  Deliberately and generously welcome them.  Offer kindness, support, friendship and belonging.  Refrain from offering advice, judgment and enforcement of homogeneity.  Open our hearts to love people and find the treasure that compounds in our own lives.  Through open arms, manufacture Freedom and destroy Control.

Open Mind: Open our minds to being wrong and discussing the truth.  With so many "right" people with very different opinions (particularly about the interpretation of the Bible) we can't all be right, in fact we can't agree on many fundamentals.  Take a good look at the church's beliefs and its many variations.  Take a good look at those calling for a more progressive, open-ended interpretation to Biblical truth.  We need to work out our salvation and place in God's kingdom through much thoughtful consideration.  When we don't do this we actually blind our eyes to truth instead of embracing it as something to be obtained the hard way.  Don't accept easy interpretations based on tradition.  Teach each other by challenging each other and discussing the truth as you see it.  Treasure the Conversation that engages your mind.

Open Spirit: Open our spirits to Respond to God in the current age in a unique way compared to previous points in history.  God is calling.  His call brings us to new places and new maturity, leading to a new understanding of him. His call is not a repeating litany but a new fresh voice.  He calls his people.  He yearns for us.  He challenges us.  He wants to reveal himself and truth itself.  Open our spirits to hear him above our traditions and traditional views of truth. Seek and then don't be surprised when you Find!

My prayer is for a new trend, where different traditions of Christian believers open their eyes, arms, hearts and spirits in whatever ways they can based on their willingness and starting point.  It will take work to open our doors where they have been shut for so long, and any steps toward progress should be counted as an achievement!

Do you have stories of how openness has transformed believers and churches?  Send them to me or post as a comment....