Ungenerous Love?

I decided not to blog about the brave coming out of Vicky Beeching last week, largely because I don't think it is as important as people are making out, and also because my friends Ian Paul and Dean Roberts both did very good jobs of doing so. Ian's post in particular, which you can read here, discusses this in relation to some intriguing research on attitudes, and casts some questions for the wider debate on sexual morality. It is to this latter thing, this wider discussion, that this post is addressed.

Before getting to my point, though, lets get something out of the way. I am 'conservative' on sexuality, and I believe that sex(uality) is not enough to define who we are, and I think Stonewall (the UK's major LGBT charity) occasionally get things right (That said, their claim to be an LGBT charity is skewed, as is so often the case in this discussion, in that Bisexual and Transsexual* people get left out). That said, my opinion is fairly clear, reasonably unfashionable, and part of my wider vision and tentative understanding of what it means to be human in a world full of options and brokenness. In fact, when blogging a while back on the brokenness of this world, I was fiercely critical of ministries like the ex-gay ministries that a) come to mind when the words 'sexuality' and 'evangelical' are linked, and b) don't actually happen in the UK (at least) anything like as much as people think.

I was talking with someone very close to me the other day, and we agreed that it would be so much easier, practically/socially/relationally/missionally, if the Church could just 'get with the program' and change its mind over sexuality. Behind the arguments, the half-hearted debates, the talking past each other, there is a bigger problem which I'd like to briefly address in this post.

I am concerned that the underlying assumption, which I hear and read implicitly and explicitly from many (not all) on the 'pro-gay-marriage-side' is that if you disagree with active same-sex relationships, you thus cannot love people well.

Worse, that such a blind-spot means that you don't really understand what love is.

This is problematic, because as all biblically literate Christians know, 'God is Love', and his people are called to be people of love in a world that easily falls to hate and injustice. 

There is a powerful quote attributed to Billy Graham, which has been all over my Twitter timeline today:

I think this is absolutely true. Except that, as ever, in a quote that fits into a tweetable image, you cannot define love. And this is why I am so struck by another quote, a little longer and without an image, from Billy Graham. Here, (and I've blogged it before, and that links to the source), Graham expands on what that love is:

"The most important issue we face today is the same the church has faced in every century: Will we reach our world for Christ? In other words, will we give priority to Christ's command to go into all the world and preach the gospel? Or will we turn increasingly inward, caught up in our own internal affairs or controversies, or simply becoming more and more comfortable with the status quo? Will we become inner-directed or outer-directed? The central successes of our time aren't economic or political or social, important as these are. The central issues of our time are moral and spiritual in nature, and our calling is to declare Christ's forgiveness and hope and transforming power to a world that does not know him or follow him. May we never forget this"

I think Graham nails it here. The Church is called outwards, into the world, to preach the Gospel. Our internal affairs and controversies - or the status quo - are distractions from the task at hand. The strong implication of what Graham is saying has a prophetic edge for the present controversy within evangelicalism and the wider church over sexuality. Again, with my emphasis added:

"The central issues of our time are moral and spiritual in nature, and our calling is to declare Christ's forgiveness and hope and transforming power to a world that does not know him or follow him. May we never forget this"

I believe there are very good reasons to suggest that the present controversy over sexuality is problematic. I respect both Nicky Gumbel and Justin Welby, not because I agree with them on everything, but in part because, when asked, their view on the issue of sexuality is; "The position that we hold to here is exactly the same as the church worldwide... Look at what Justin said in his interview. Justin absolutely put it how I would want to. It holds to the orthodox position while being extremely gracious and accepting" [source]. This is a posture of love, not ungenerous bigotry. Orthodoxy should go hand in hand with orthopraxy: truth with grace.

One of today's evangelicals - perhaps one might also nod to Nicky Gumbel of HTB - who arguably resembles Graham in terms of goodwill and evangelistic vision, is Rick Warren. I don't think that Warren can be accused of not loving people, and he stands in the great evangelical tradition of Wilberforce (advocating for the end of slavery), J. C. Ryle (that Anglican bishop with a concern for unity and truth), C. Everett Koop (an American evangelical Surgeon-General, who was passionate about the Aids epidemic), and that host of famous and unknown preachers, evangelists and missionaries who changed the flavour of their places for the flourishing of human beings and the advance of the Gospel. When I blogged back in 2012 about Chick'fil'A, Starbucks, and Ben and Jerrys in relation to gender-neutral marriage, I quoted Rick Warren;

"Our culture has accepted two huge lies: the first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate"

I think Warren is spot on. And whilst Guardian columnists like Peter Ormerod (whose article today is titled 'Why Vicky Beeching coming out matters') focus in a vague way on the 'rabid homphobia' of evangelicals, I think the reality is different. Before the gender-neutral marriage debate in the UK of 2012, the Evangelical Alliance released a helpful book on pastoral and theological responses to homosexuality. That is not the action of an unloving group. Recently, some friends and their friends went live with the powerful and under-known 'Living Out' website, a brilliant pastoral resource for Churches and people around the LGBT* spectrum. Before that, True Freedom Trust has a long ministry in the UK - and one of my oldest friends (Who wrote the two most popular guest posts on my blog, 'Changing Orientation?' and 'Freedom?') speaks warmly of them. I could point, too, to the excellent books by Wesley Hill, Sam Allberry, Alex Tylee, and others (Such as the great chapter in this book by Rich Nathan, or the intriguing bridge-building ministry of Andrew Marin [though some of his conclusions lack clarity]), advocating a love-motivated approach to homosexuality and the Church.

It simply isn't true that those of us who are 'traditional' are uniformly unloving, or ungenerous.

And I don't think those who are not traditional are, either, I just wonder whether they have a large enough picture of God, the King who is Love. Certainly my concerns with Matthew Vines' book can be echoed for much of Vicky Beeching's writing, concerns I wrote about in 'An Inadequate Image'. Real love has something to say to everyone - even if it isn't always easy to hear or heed.

Nicky Gumbel put it brilliantly in a 2009 interview:

"I think everybody needs healing. My understanding of human beings is that were created in the image of God but we are all fallen, and Jesus died for us so that we can be redeemed. Every Christian is in a process of healing in some way. We're not as we're meant to be. God's original creation was good, and in some ways fallen away from that. And in every area of our life we need to be revealed and restored and to become more Christ-like"

Amen. Love does not ignore the reality of this world. Or the root cause of the Israel/Gaza conflict and the persecution in Iraq. This is what love is. The kind of love that we see embodied in Jesus, who so desired relationship with us and the restoration of all things that he died and rose 2000 years ago. For anyone, in every way, so that, as Revelation 21:5 puts it, everything might be made new...

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I end here, reader , because much of what I could say I have said before, and I'd rather we communicated or tried to understand each other than endlessly blogged over and around. For more reading, click the 'homosexuality' or 'sexuality' tags, or check out my bibliography on sex and gender. I'd love to interact with you - whether that is in the comments box or via Twitter or Facebook. Thank-you for reading.