Hello my friends,

I pray this finds you well today!

My heart has been grieving a lot over the mistreatment of our LGBTQ+ siblings. It feels like it is just continuing to escalate. Not only online and in their local communities, but in state legislators all over our country and other parts of the world as well. All of which involve those who claim to be followers of Jesus. I feel it is deeply important for us Christians to talk about this and I hope you will read this newsletter with the same heart of compassion and grace in which it was written.

To my LGBTQ+ friends who are reading this, please know that I refer to some instances of bullying and violence that have occurred against your community in this newsletter. I am mostly writing this to those of us, like myself, who need to be more aware of the mistreatment that is happening to you and your community. I just wanted you to know before you choose to read on. I would also deeply appreciate any feedback you might have if you do choose to read to the end.

Before we think about this together, here are some things that have challenged my thinking on this topic. Feel free to respond with others that you have found helpful as well.

RESOURCES TO CONSIDER

-If you haven't yet read, "UnClobber: Expanded Edition with Study Guide: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality," I would highly recommend that you do. UnClobber reexamines what the Bible says (and does not say) about homosexuality in such a way that sheds divine light on outdated and inaccurate assumptions and interpretations.

-With the Bible being the most translated collection of books in the entire world, it is critical to pay attention to changes made in those translations along the way. One of those important questions should be, "has the word homosexual always been in the Bible?" This article published in the United Methodist Insight sheds some really needed and interesting light on that question.

-I also found this article from Saint Hugh of Lincoln Episcopal Church to be challenging and insightful when it comes to untangling our interpretation of scripture from harmful interpretations we have been given towards the LGBTQ+ community. I encourage you to give it a read as well.

Okay, now onto today's content.

Hate Masquerading As Christian Love

As many of you know, I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian. I then became an Evangelical Christian later in my middle school and teenage years, bringing my fundamentalist theology along with me. I held the most far right views on everything, especially towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Yet, even when I held those extreme views, three things always confused me and grieved my heart. First, I was so baffled by how so many of my Christian leaders would say “all sin is equal in the sight of God,” yet they and the broader Christian community would treat homosexuality as if it was the most world ending, nation destroying, mortal sin known to God and humanity. What they preached didn't at all match what they were practicing. Second, and closely connected to the first, I was ashamed at the hypocrisy of how so many Christian leaders would treat homosexuality with a zero tolerance religious legalism, yet have such incredible grace and flexibility towards the sins of the politicians and religious leaders they liked. Lastly, I was simply confounded by the amount of vitriolic hatred I saw towards the LGBTQ+ community from fellow Christians. I couldn't understand how our Bible could say, “God loved us even while we were yet sinners [Rom. 5:8-10]” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God [Rom. 3:23-27],” then we could somehow justify ourselves in treating others with such dehumanizing contempt when we ourselves were also sinners in need of God’s saving grace.

It all just felt like an effort in extreme theological gymnastics in order to justify hating a particular group of people.

As I grew up and continued following Jesus, I just couldn’t reconcile this imbalanced and deeply hostile theology with what I was learning from Jesus. For me, it doesn’t matter how deeply we Christians might disagree with someone. That person is still created in God’s image and deserves to be loved and treated accordingly. Remembering too, with humility, that we are also in need of God’s grace. We are in this together. Not pit against each other. The gospel of Jesus is not a war.

Yet, when it comes to our LGBTQ+ siblings, it seems as though we have turned salvation into a war we have to win at all costs and they are treated as our greatest threat.

As I am sure you are all aware, the animosity towards the LGBTQ+ community has grown to a fever pitch culturally and has been weaponized politically. Not only is there anti-lgbtq legislation happening in states all over the country, but brutal hate crimes continue to be carried out against the LGBTQ+ community as well.

Many if not all of my LGBTQ+ friends who are part of my church came to my community after being told they were no longer welcome at their previous church. Further still, many of them have been estranged from family and friends. Almost daily I see my LGBTQ+ friends get taunted and harassed online by those who claim to be followers of Jesus. They will mock and bully them and I have even seen them unashamedly tell LGBTQ+ people that they should take their own lives. Let it be said clearly, this is not of Jesus at all. This behavior is evil and completely antichrist.

This hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community hit even closer to home for me when a local pastor here in Boise Idaho hatefully yelled in a sermon that was being streamed online that "all queer people needed to be executed." His sermon eventually went viral. I was so deeply angry and heartbroken. I couldn’t imagine how scared I would be if someone told an entire congregation of people that I needed to be put to death just for being me. In the context of so much hate, I couldn’t believe someone could preach such an evil thing and still have the audacity to claim they spoke on behalf of Jesus.

In response to this pastor’s hate speech, I and 24 other faith leaders from the Treasure Valley area wrote and published a letter in the local news condemning it and voiced our solidarity with our LGBTQ+ siblings.

Shortly after this letter was published, a teenager from Boise High reached out to our church and asked if they could bring a group of LGBTQ+ teens to have a discussion with local faith leaders about their experiences with Christianity and how they've been treated by religious people in our culture. We quickly accepted the invitation. I was on a panel with a local Rabbi, Priest, Zen Buddhist, and another fellow Methodist Pastor. A large group of LGBTQ+ teens came. I don’t say this lightly, it was one of the most powerful and sacred moments for me. Hearing their personal traumatic experiences with religion along with their deep desire to be loved and find belonging with their community impacted me so deeply. These teenagers had experienced things no teenager should have to. There was so many tears shed but there was a lot of healing as well. You can read the news report on this gathering here.​

With these events fresh in my mind, I was asked later on to be interviewed by another local news channel about the growing demand for theocracy in Idaho’s legislation, which you can watch here. It was the hurt in the faces I saw of those precious teenagers as well as the deep fear expressed to me by so many women in my community over Idaho's legislation on reproductive rights that informed how I would respond in my interview.

I am not saying that I have everything figured out when it comes to Christianity or the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, I think believing that we Christians have it all figured out when it comes to Christianity and the LGBTQ+ community is at the root of the hostility we are seeing. It is no secret that the way the broader Christian community has responded to the LGBTQ+ community has been overwhelmingly wrong, hateful, and looks nothing like Jesus.

We have a lot of repenting to do as the Christian community, especially in this area. So much hate and hurt has been caused towards our LGBTQ+ siblings in the name of Jesus. We can’t hope to have any kind of genuine and loving relationship with our LGBTQ siblings until we repent, seek forgiveness, and bring healing.

Personally, one of the first things that challenged and convicted me of this need for repentance from the Christian community regarding the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community was the Bible itself.

Specifically, Acts 8:26-40 where Philip has a conversation with a eunuch from Ethiopia. I still believe this passage and others like it can teach us a great deal about how we Christians should approach gender identity and inclusion.

So, to conclude this newsletter, I want to take a quick look at how the Ethiopian eunuch would have be seen by the culture of their day and how it should shape our perspectives today.

As an Ethiopian, they would be considered inferior and on the fringe by many due to the xenophobia and bigotry that was common in the Greco-Roman world.

As a eunuch (castrated), they were simultaneously considered by the Greco-Roman and Israelite culture to be both a man and non-man. They were seen as being in between a man and a woman, not fitting at all into their cultural standards of masculinity or strength nor femininity and tenderness. A eunuch was considered an in-between person, not a full person.

Given what Acts 8:26-40 tells us, that the Ethiopian eunuch had “gone down to Jerusalem to worship,” they were most likely a convert to Judaism. Given Israelite religious law at the time, this means that they would have been forbidden to fully participate in worship inside the temple. “If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord." (Deuteronomy 23:1). Given this context, they would have also only been allowed to be in certain parts of the city of Jerusalem as they were considered “unclean” by many.

In stark contrast to this, in the region of ancient Ethiopia, we are told that the Ethiopian eunuch held the high position of court treasurer, overseeing the enormous wealth of Queen Candace. They had enough income to not only have their own chariot but could even afford to buy a scroll of Isaiah to read on the long journey home.

After the Ethiopian Eunuch had worshiped in Jerusalem, they were heading back home when the Holy Spirit brought Philip to them. Philip humbly asked if they understood what they were reading from the scroll of Isaiah (53:7-8), which speaks of the innocent sacrifice of the slaughtered Lamb.

To those of us reading this today, it should not be missed what Isaiah writes just a few pages later regarding eunuchs:

Isaiah 56:3-5

3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch say,
“I am only a dry tree.”

4 For this is what the Lord says:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
​5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will endure forever.

I can't help but imagine that they both read this prophetic "word of the Lord" in the scroll of Isaiah during their conversation together. What a message of hope and inclusion it would of been. A message in stark contrast to the one eunuchs would commonly hear within the legal and cultural context of that time.

After a long conversation about Jesus between the both of them while traveling together in the Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot, they came upon some water. Now, given the context we just talked about, what happens next always moves me to tears. The Ethiopian Eunuch says here: “Look, here is water. What would stand in the way of my being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).

The Ethiopian eunuch was so excited! After learning about Jesus, the Lord who accepts them, they understood their inherent worth, value, and human dignity in the eyes of God. They didn’t want to spend another moment not being part of Christ’s kingdom! They wanted to be baptized on the spot!

But there was that critical question: “What would stand in the way of my being baptized?”

Well, that depends. According to who?

According to the Greco-Roman culture of that day, there would be many reasons why a eunuch shouldn’t be baptized.

According to the broader religious culture of that day, there would have had many reasons why a eunuch shouldn’t be baptized.

But what does Philip say in response to this question? Nothing. Philip responded instead by baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch right then and there. Philip responded by embodying the prophetic words of the Lord from Isaiah 56:5: "I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever."

My friends, in light of the historical context as well as our current political and religious environment today, we simply can’t afford to miss how profound and radical this moment was.

We are then told that the Ethiopian Eunuch took the gospel message back home and to “the ends of the earth,” fully included as a baptized member of the Body of Christ, just exactly as they were.

This is a powerful display of the ever expanding horizons of God’s grace. This is the power of the Holy Spirit, dismantling categories that would otherwise exclude a child of God. This is what it looks like to have our circles of inclusion expanded rather than narrowed.

This passage makes clear that God did not function within the ridged constructs of gender legalism that were being propagated by both the political and religious culture of the 1st century, much like our own today. Moreover, Philip was humble enough as a disciple of Jesus to not be constrained by that kind of cultural gender legalism either. Philip accepted this eunuch, his new Christian sibling, just as they were.

How would we have responded to the Ethiopian Eunuch if we were in Philip’s shoes today? What legalistic constructs do we find ourselves captive to today that might prevent us from allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us in order to include others?

Do we question others based on our ridged categories or do we question our ridged categories based on encountering someone else’s humanness?

I would highly recommend you to read further about eunuchs all throughout the Bible. It is a complicated and nuanced discovery. As you do, remember these words Jesus said himself about eunuchs, which have always challenged me to think more on the complexities of human sexuality: “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19:12).

I find it so important to note that as prevalent as eunuchs were in the first century, the gospels show us that Jesus has zero condemning words towards them or their lifestyle. Such harsh rhetoric seemed to always be reserved for those who would misuse their religious authority for their own gain.

In the current cultural conversations among Christians regarding the LGBTQ+ community, my heart continues to break by how often it lacks Christ like love, compassion, grace, and an openness to where the Holy Spirit might be trying to lead us. The demonizing and dehumanizing treatment of our LGBTQ+ siblings is wrong and it is the last thing we Christians should be known for, yet unfortunately we are. This reputation is so deeply contradictory to what we see here in Acts 8 let alone what we see from the dismantling work of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost regarding race, gender, age, and nationality in Acts 2!

As God’s people, I pray we allow grace to govern the opinions we are willing to extend to others rather than allow our opinions of others to govern the grace we are willing to extend. For God is always actively trying to include those who we are actively trying to exclude.

We would do well to remember the words from 1 John 4:21: “If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates a fellow human being, they are a liar. For anyone who does not love their siblings, whom they can see, cannot love God, whom they can not see.” This includes masquerading our hate for others as love for God.

I want to end with this powerful quote from the late Rachel Held Evens: “The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in.”

What Rachel Held Evans says here was so powerfully true for Philip and it was true for the Ethiopian eunuch as well. May it be true for us Christians today as well.

Now I want to hear from you. How has God been working with you in this area? Is there something you feel like I missed? Send me a reply. I would love to hear from you.

Many of you have kindly asked how you can support my work. So, I created a way for you to do so. Simply click here: support.​

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Lastly, I am thankful to pastor at a multicampus church where our slogan is "All Means All." If you are looking for a church community or are in between churches right now and are looking for a temporary place to be, please know you are always welcome. If you are local in Boise Idaho, you can find worship times and locations at our website here. If you'd like to attend online, you can find out how to do that here. I am the pastor of the Amity Campus.

As always, thank you so much for reading.

-Ben

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

​What Do We Mean By "Revival?"​

​The God of the Bible​

​Not Everything Happens For A Reason​

​The Gun Problem is a Sin Problem​

​Conversations In Conflict​

​What Does It Even Mean To Be Christian Anymore?​