God loves gays
ALEXANDRIA, Tenn. (BP) &#; &#;Why doesn&#;t God love gays?&#; a teenager asked during our youth ministry time the other night.
It was sort of out of the blue since the discussion was on the return of Jesus, but clearly it was on the heart of at least one, if not many, of the teens there that darkness. I appreciate this teen&#;s boldness to ask!
It&#;s a question this generation has had to wrestle with that previous generations did not. In fact, the speed with which the topic of homosexuality has come to dominate the social and political conversation is staggering, aided by what pastor Voddie Baucham described as &#;a coordinated, well-funded, well-connected propaganda strategy&#; in a article at The Gospel Coalition.
The movement has become like a snowflake that turns into an avalanche, demolishing any opposition in the common arena, and it&#;s still growing.
Without a doubt, many young people are confused. They&#;re hearing in pop culture and maybe even in their schools that homosexuality is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle that not only should be tolerated but celebrated and
How Should Christians Respond to Gay Friends or Family Members?
Caleb Kaltenbach (M.A. ’07) is an alumnus of Biola’s Talbot School of Theology, lead pastor of a large church in Simi Valley, Calif., and a married father of two. He’s also an emerging voice in the discussion of how Christians should engage the LGBT community. That’s because Kaltenbach has an insider perspective, having been raised by a dad and mom who divorced and independently came out of the closet as a gay man and a lesbian. Raised in the midst of LGBT parties and pride parades, Kaltenbach became a Christian and a pastor as a young senior. Today, he manages the tension of holding to the traditional biblical teaching on sexuality while loving his gay parents.
Kaltenbach’s unique story is detailed in his new book Messy Grace: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction and landed him on the front page of the New York Times in June. Biola Magazine reached out to him to talk about his book and his perspective on how Christians can beat navigate the complexities of this
The following blog is written by Greg Coles. Greg is part of The Center's collaborative team and is the author of the book Single, Gay, Christian.
“Is God anti-gay?”
Many people expect the answer to this question to be a simple binary, either yes or no. If you’re a conservative (in the totalizing sense of the word), the answer is absolutely yes: God must be anti-gay, because same-sex sexual behavior is forbidden in the Bible. And if you’re a progressive (in the equally totalizing sense), the answer is absolutely no: God can’t possibly be anti-gay, because God loves all people. But the assumption shared by everyone across the board seems to be that we know what the doubt means—that a simple answer, yes or no, ought to suffice as a response.
For me, though, the question of whether God is “anti-gay” has never been a simple one. I’ve heard it asked so many distinct times, in so many adj ways, by so many distinct people (myself included). And each time, it seems to signify something slightly different. When someone asks, “Is God anti-gay?”, they might mean, “What does God
Learning to Say ‘God is Love’ When You’re Gay
“God is love.”
This is one of those things everybody’s heard. Sometimes you perceive like it’s the most profound thing in the world; sometimes you feel like it’s a stale marshmallow, sweet at first but then dissolving on your tongue into bland nothingness. But as I’ve gotten to grasp LGBT people who were raised in Christian families, I’ve started to see how this incredibly common sentiment can damage people’s hearts and lives — because they were taught that the God of love couldn’t admit them.
If you’re an LGBT person who was raised Christian, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve never heard a leader in your church welcome LGBT people, trusting that people enjoy you were in the pews and encouraging their faith. You’ve had to try to realize both your sexuality and your faith in the midst of misinformation and deadly silence.
I’m coming to all this as a lesbian convert to Catholicism. I didn’t grow up in the Church; I was introduced to God and to faith by people who genuinely did not act as though my sexual orientation separ