Christians owe LGBTQ Americans a huge apology. Instead of speaking about and to this group of fellow Americans out of love and respect; we spoke about LGBTQ Americans in ways that were cruel and disrespectful. Such behavior is not conducive to reflecting our God’s love to others.
“The greatest commandment is to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and the second, equally important command is to love your neighbor as yourself. These two summarize all of God’s law and the prophet’s teachings.” — Jesus.
Christians do not speak from an attitude of love and respect when we demean anyone who is made in the image of God.
We are all made in the image of God, including LGBTQ Americans. We may not all agree (although many Christians do) with their sexual orientation or gender identity, but we are all too often guilty of speaking about and to LGBTQ Americans not in love and respect, but out of cruelty and disrespect. We must all agree that it harms our gospel anytime Christians are anything less than loving and respectful. When we speak out and support politicians who attack and demean fellow Americans for any reason, we harm the gospel of Jesus because it associates our loving God with a partisan political candidate or cause that seeks to harm fellow Americans who are made in His image. We believers must beware of those who would seek our support for a candidate or cause, but who attacks or demeans other humans. Such a candidate or cause – no matter the party – is of the evil one. Jesus himself said in Mathew 5:45 “There is no righteousness in loving those we love, even the hypocrites do this” and in Luke 6:32-33 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”
You either add to the love in the world, or you add to the hate and cruelty in the world. If your religion teaches that it is ok to be cruel or disrespectful to another person, then your religion is cruel.
We have for too long have allowed “Christian” partisan political activist, religious leaders, and politicians, to use the Bible and to use American Christians for their own personal and political enrichment. This harms our witness tremendously and causes many to reject Jesus. God is neither a republican nor a democrat, and there are many devout and good Christians in both parties. Whenever we associate God with partisan politics, we are limiting God by placing him in a very small box. God is bigger than one party or any one nation. We put God in a very small box whenever we say our interpretation of scripture is the only valid or correct one. We are saying, we know the mind and intent of God so well that we are confident we know it better than everyone else. How arrogant we humans can be!
When we say that we oppose gay and lesbian sexual orientations and civil rights (even though we live under a secular government and not a theocracy) because of what was written to a different society thousands of years ago; we are ignoring the meaning of the context of the scriptures, and how those scriptures have been historically interpreted by the descendants of those societies. Many Jewish and Christian theologians consider the Torah and the Christian Bible (respectfully) to be divinely inspired and a living document for ongoing revelation, and focus on its ethical core and ability to meet modern challenges, often with a less literal approach to narrative. It is quite possible that the ancient text that are used to attack, dehumanize, and legitimize violence towards LGBTQ Americans are being taken out of context, and that the literal interpretation of these verses contradicts the very principles of love and respect taught in scripture. I remind you that these verses sit very close (and in the same book!) as another verse that those who call themselves “fundamentalist” and who argue that the Bible must be interpreted literally like to ignore. I’m talking of course, of the most ignored verse in the Bible by those who believe in biblical literalism: Deuteronomy 22:20-21, that says if a man marries a woman, and evidence of her virginity is not found on her wedding night, that she shall be stoned to death at the entrance of her father’s house. Interestingly, if a man is not a virgin on his wedding night, there is no demand in the Torah or Christian Bible that he be murdered as a result.
Those in America who insist that the Bible must be interpreted literally ignore this verse. Perhaps it is ignored because almost every single one of our “Christian grandmothers” would have been murdered by the Church if they really believed in interpreting the Bible literally. What we find, repeatedly, by those who use a literal interpretation of the Bible as a reason to denounce LGBTQ Americans as ‘sinful’ is that they repeatedly ignore literal interpretation of verses when it suits them in other instances. A literal interpretation of holy scripture is untenable in the real world. All scripture must be interpreted in light of the ethical core of Christianity and Judaism. The ethical core of Judaism and Christianity, as Jesus told us, is loving your neighbor as yourself. American Christians, who have long used the Bible to attack, to dehumanize, and to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans, need to take a long, hard look at ourselves and see how our behavior conflicts with the principles of Christianity and see how our behavior has harmed other Americans. Indeed, Christian support of hostility to LGBTQ Americans has fueled legal discrimination, cruelty, and even violence – sometimes deadly – against our fellow citizens. For this, American Christians must repent. We have caused tremendous pain and suffering for millions of Americans, and we did it while falsely thinking we were doing the Lord’s work. One does not have to accept that being LGBTQ is moral, but we do need to engage with LGBTQ Americans not with hostility or hate, but from an attitude of respect for them as fellow Americans and as human beings who are also made in the image of God. We can treat them with respect and with love even if you don’t agree with them. If you happen to be a Christian who believes being LGBTQ is moral and ok, that is ok too. My purpose is not to change anyone’s religious beliefs. My purpose is to change behavior towards others – speaking to others only from a perspective of love and respect. The reason for this is three-fold: 1) Christians should be known as loving people, and participation in the culture wars is distracting Christians from their prime directive of loving God and loving others. You cannot love someone when you are trying to take their civil rights away or when you are refusing them service in a business that serves the public. 2) Partisan Christian activism is causing large numbers of American youth to reject faith in Jesus because Christians are becoming associated with a modern political movement (MAGA/ Trump) that is known for its corruption, its misogyny, its racism, and its cruelty toward most anyone but themselves. 3) The ‘Us against them’ rhetoric that too many religious leaders employ against LGBTQ Americans is often used to justify and to incite violence.
Inciting hatred and violence toward other Americans, or defending legal discrimination against fellow Americans, is not of God, and is not the Lords work. To those many LGBTQ Americans who have been harmed by some Christians who were cruel and disrespectful, I apologize. You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, just like everyone else. We in the Church must learn to speak only from a perspective of love and holiness.
Intentional cruelty is never holy.
Dr. Beaux Bonhoeffer
Find me also @beauxbonhoeffer.bsky.social and at beauxbonhoeffer.substack.com