Josiah Concept Ministries

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people,” [Elton] John, who has a home in Atlanta, said in the Observer newspaper’s Music Monthly Magazine. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion,” he said. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

Homosexuality is sin. There are ways around it, but I’ve never read a way around that fact that doesn’t try to skirt the issue, soften the plain text of the Bible, or take some other artful dodge aimed at obscuring the meaning of God’s Word.

Addiction is also sin. But people who are suffering from addictions do not have the same attitude toward organized religion that Mr. John has summarized for us, an attitude shared by many within the LGBT community. Organized religion has helped so many people overcome addictions by teaching these people that there is something better than drugs or alcohol–the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

The current relationship–or lack thereof–of the church with the LGBT community is one of the largest modern failings of the church Christ has founded. I think that He would be sickened by the way Christians respond to their homosexual brothers and sisters. Christ Himself personally ministered to the deposed members of society, miring Himself deep within the sinners of His day. Many Christians today don’t really want to be bothered with that. We treat gays with disdain, contempt, and, yes, even hatred.

But this should not be so. We should not neglect the message of salvation–the Gospel entrusted to us by Christ–by not transmitting it to the LGBT community. We welcome sinners of all sorts with open arms and an understanding heart. Why is this not so with members of the LGBT community? How many of their number feel the longing in their hearts that can be filled by God alone and we neglect preaching the Good News to them because they are gay?

I’m not suggesting that we treat homosexuality with kid gloves by not calling it for what it is: sin. But perhaps we could do a much better job at separating the sinners from the sin. A person who happens to be LGBT is not evil. We should share the Good News with that person same as we would share with a person who had a gambling or a drug addiction. We certainly wouldn’t turn the latter person out of our church on the basis of a poor personal choice. Why would we behave differently toward the homosexual?

Who are we to decide who receives the gospel? “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2Pet 3:9, emphasis added). Remember the words of Jesus: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (Jn 13:34). It is in this way that the world will know that we are His disciples (Jn 15:8).

As Elton John states above, we have failed miserably at this in regards to the LGBT community.

I, for one, would like to see this change. This creates a very delicate problem. How do we still address something as sin, but create a better relationship with the community that actively practices it and fights for their right to do so? Well, I don’t have an answer for that here, I confess.

The idea that I am trying to communicate in this post is that modern Christianity has failed to reach the LGBT community. In fact, it has alienated these people. There must be a way, somehow, to not only reach these people in love, but to start winning their souls for the glory of the Lord.

And I think that is something we should all pray on.

View the quoted article here.