The Unification of Church and Gay

The rash of recent suicides from bullied teens who either were gay or perceived to be such has pretty much made it obvious that we need to have an LGBTQ support group at our church. Hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks we’ll be able to make that happen.

Yesterday, my partner talked with our church’s social justice cheerleader (a nickname given to her by our pastor) about getting together this week to discuss what we can do to start up a group within our church. While PFLAG is a great option, we feel that our church should have a group for members and visitors. But what the goal of this group will be I’m uncertain, hence, the reason we are going to have a meeting. Most of the time when you hear of churches discussing the issues around homosexuality, it is primarily focused on “saving” them or trying to convert them to the heterosexual lifestyle. Our church is focused on welcoming everybody, regardless of who you are.

About ten years ago I wrote an article about the origins of homophobia, most of which stemmed from religion, and the fact that the basis for this hatred was off of mistranslated words. Further research led me to believe that even taking what is currently accepted as a suitable English translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, still doesn’t warrant the kind of outrage and bigotry associated with the Religious “Right’s” attack on homosexuality unless they also attack menstruating women, children who refuse to be prostitutes because their parents told them to be, or anyone who wears a cotton/polyester blend shirt. Go ahead and read Leviticus… it’s fun. I just find it interesting that there weren’t any words for homosexual in the Old Testament and the two words used in the New Testament, “pornea” and “akatharsia” (which translate as fornicate and uncleanness) have nothing to do with homosexuality. And mind you, this wasn’t for a lack of words in the Greek language to describe gays, because there were roughly 45-50 different words to choose from at the time the New Testament was written.

I think it is time for some healing to begin. I think it is time for churches to realize that marginalizing a minority will only alienate them from mainstream society. But not only that, marginalizing any human being sets a precedent that intolerance, hatred and bullying are accepted, which as a Christian, goes against the core values of the faith. I think it is time for so many churches who have used their platform to spread hate to turn it around and spread love instead. Seriously people, what would Jesus do?


The Vancouver United Church of Christ website:

http://www.vanucc.org/