In the email she said she didn't know who else to talk to, so I was elected. She was dealing with massively discombobulating news: her son had recently told her he was gay.
His homosexuality was not a total surprise, but neither had it been obvious before he opened his heart to her. She and her husband loved him. His sexual identity was not going to change that. He was still their son. She was not writing me for help in dealing with her son. Her mother's love gave adequate wisdom for that. She didn't need help persuading her husband—her son's step dad—to be kind. His father's heart was quite up to that. What she wanted to know was what to do about the lock on heaven's door.
Her son was welcome in their home. But according to the Bible and the church, God would not allow her son into heaven. She didn't put it this way, but what I heard was this: Mom and Dad were nicer than God. At least that the way she had been taught to understand the Bible.
So what should we do when it turns out we're nicer than God? Reexamine our faith.
“Who of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Fatehr in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. . . . So you, be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:44-48.
When we discover that our hearts are larger than God's heart according to the teaching of the church and even of the Bible, it's time to take another look. Maybe the church is wrong. Maybe the way we've been reading the Bible is wrong. Maybe we have focused on the wrong texts.
If being god-like means loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors, then certainly being god-like means loving people whose sexual identity is different from ours, even different from “normal.”
If one way we “become sons of our Father in heaven” is by loving our enemies just as he loves his enemies, then loving our homosexual children—accepting them as they are—cannot be an affront to God. Instead, it is one more way we act like our father in heaven.
If we, though we are evil, know that it would be evil to “cast out” our homosexual children, how much more certain is it that our Father in heaven—their Father in heaven—will not only refrain from casting them out, but will welcome them joyously into the eternal dwelling?
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We like to think the church is a beneficial influence on society, and we are offended at the accusations of people like Dawkins, that church is a positive harm that should be resisted. I think the churches historical attitude toward the GBLT is a good example of the church being a positive harm to society. I am glad to see some slight glimmer of grace in your treatment of the issue.
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