The month of Love- How the Lesbian and Gay Community Percieves Christians.

 I work as an optical technician at an eye doctors in Kansas City. I am the only Jesus follower where I work, and its been an enlightening expierence for me to hear the way that other people percieve christians, as well as heart wrenching. Well today, I got to have another heart rending expierence while working, that I feel could be enlightening to some of you.

The office I work at is very gay and lesbian friendly. We advertise at lots of gay pride festivals, and its not uncommon at all, for me to help a man and his partner pick out thier glasses together. So, as I was opening the mail today I came across one of the local magazines we advertise in. The magazine was "Camp- Kansas City's voice for the LGTB and allied community". I had never seen a gay and lesbian magazine, so out of curiosity I decided to flip through it. I thought lots of the articles were very well written and interesting. However, it was the very last article that really caught my eye.

 Camp's paper, has a column titled "Ask Francine". "Ask Francine", is a comical editorial style article written by the fictional character francine. Francine is a christian, gay hating, woman. The article I read featured pictures of Jesus carrying guns, "I hate faggot" signs and american flags. The article proceeded to poke fun at the charectar of francine. It insulted her intelligence, and revealed her foolish self righteousness and hateful attitude towards gay's and lesbians. It was very clever, and I can see how someone may find it funny.

 However, for me it raised a lot of questions. The most glaring being, Is this really how the gay and lesbian community views Christians, and Jesus? The answer must be yes, cause otherwise the article would not be funny. So, the next question is, why are christians percieved this way, and is thier any truth to this perception?

Sadly, thier is a lot of truth. I remember sitting on the church bus in highschool, and listening to christian teens crack off jokes about gay's. I've heard numerous Christian men make comments about some "flamin" guy, or about how they would never wear that shirt cause it would make them look like a "fag". I'm sure that over the years I have even laughed at some of these jokes or participated in making them. Then you look at people like Fred Phelp's who picket the funerals of gay's and you have to ask the question; why wouldn't gay's think of christians as people who hate them? Maybe we do.

I'm not saying that we should start having gay and lesbian clubs in our churches, or deny the existence of Romans 1. What I am saying is that the majority of the christian body has a deep root of hatred and a very unchrist like attitude towards gay's and lesbians, and thats wrong. Is having sexual or romantic relations with someone of the same sex wrong? Yes, it is. Is hating someone wrong? Yes, it is. All humans, have sinned. Every person on the planet, gay, hetrosexual, black, white, murderer, or choir girl, needs Jesus.

However, for some reason the church is living under this illusion that being gay or lesbian is much worse a crime than all the other sins listed in Romans 1. Guess what? Envy, is listed next to homesexuality in the bible, because all of it is evil in God's sight. The issue is not that women and men are having same sex relations. The issue is that all have fallen short of the Glory of God. However, God in his great love, looked on mankind and chose us while we were still sinners to be his children and made a way for that to happen through Christ's blood.

We are sinners, and "We", is the message that the church is not communicating to gay's and lesbians. Instead our message has been one of self rightousness, and as a result our Jesus is being mis-represented. Christians, we have to take the log out of our own eye before we can take the speck out of our brothers..We must begin to shed our own self righteousness and hate, and show love, cause if we don't the gospel will remain misconstrued among the growing gay and lesbian population in America.

Dark and Light.

 I went to a campus wide girls bible study yesterday, and the lesson was on light vs darkness. One of the activities we did really registered with me, and I want to share it with you. The leader had each girl there write down on a folded piece of paper the areas in our lives where there was still darkness. For example, maybe a secret sin that we were not allowing the holy spirit to shine light on, or an attitude that we continually struggle with that is not holy.


 As I took my piece of paper and began writing down areas in my life that I was not allowing the Lord's light to shine on, I began to feel so guilty and overwhelmed. How could I claim to be a follower of Jesus, when there were still so many areas of my life that I was falling short in. I sat their in the room feeling ashamed. As I wrote my secrets down, I tried the best I could to cover what I had already written with my arm, so no one could see. I did not want any of my friends to know my list of personal failures.


 I felt overwhelmed, by my own filthiness. I had so many areas in my life to work on. I thought "I'm never going to get past these issues, this stuff is too much for me to overcome. Some of the things I wrote on the paper were sins that I had struggled with, conquered (I thought), and that now, had poked their ugly heads back up into my life. I remember thinking "am I forever stuck in this place of sinfulness"? To be honest with you, I felt like crying, and was starting to regret having attended the study that night. Then, finally the time of self refection was over, I could fold my paper back in half and hide my secrets away from my own thoughts, and anyone else's wandering eyes.


Then the teacher instructed us to write something on the outside of the little sin booklet we had all just made. She had us write this sentence in big capital letters....

AND THE DARKNESS DID NOT OVERCOME IT. JOHN 1:5 

As I scratched these words out onto the white paper that lay in my lap, a feeling of incredible relief washed over me. THE DARKNESS DOES NOT OVERCOME IT! It wasn't anything new that I had just written on my paper. However, it was an earth shattering message. What I had just wrote on my paper was the gospel. Something that I chose to believe in for myself at the age of 11, but continually need reminding of.

 I used to feel stupid sometimes, when people would ask me what God had been teaching me, because often my reply would not be anything deep or new but it would be the gospel. Again. I would think, "I've been a Christian for awhile now, shouldn't I be learning some new stuff"... However, I've stopped feeling stupid for that. Can we ever mature past the point of needing the gospel? The greatest teaching we can ever learn and should be glad to re-learn again, and again is the story of Gods divine, and heroic rescue. How can we graduate past Christ on the cross..but thats a side note, not the point. 

  The point is the hopelessness I was experiencing while writing on that paper was alleviated. Its true that those sins, the shame, was more than I could overcome myself. However, sin (or darkness) has no power over light. Christ the light of all man, conquered death and sin on the cross. Jesus is not only able to help me stop sinning in this life, but when I fail, I am no longer guilty. God does not condemn me, because Christ has taken the consequences of sin on my behalf. Not only has he done those things but He has also made it possible for me to one day live where there will be no more struggle with sin. What a beautiful message. 

This means that for the millions of little girls who live around the world in sexual slavery, the darkness they live in, cannot overcome Christ's light. For the homes across America that are being wrecked by affairs and divorce, Christ's light can overcome their darkness. For the heart that beats in my chest and loves sin, yet claims to love Christ, even that darkness, cannot overcome Christ's light, and that means there is hope. There is hope for you, for me, and for millions around the world who are overcome by the darkness. There is one man who is not overcome and He is fighting on our behalf.