This week I had a great conversation with a friend who has been working to create space in Evangelical churches for LGBTQ folks. In the course of the conversation he expressed his concerns over the language of “affirming.” Specifically, he did not want to be in the place of pronouncing moral affirmation over anyone–straight or gay.
That got me to thinking, What am I affirming when I say that I’m affirming of LGBTQ people, and their relationships, in the church?
I’ve realized that this question takes the conversation to a place where it seems as though my traditionalist friends and I are often talking past each other. So, first what I am affirming and then what I’m not. (Spoiler: I’m with my friend.)
Affirming the Verdict of God
At the heart of what it means for me to be affirming is this: I believe that the LGBTQ people who are in the church are a people whom God has accepted.
In other words, I am affirming the verdict of God that has said to these people, as it has said to me, “You are my beloved child.”
As someone in a Presbyterian tradition, what I would say is that those LGBTQ people who were baptized into the body of Christ as children are still part of that body and still so celebrated by the Father.
As someone reared in a Baptist tradition, what I would say is that those LGBTQ people who were dedicated to the Lord and raised to pray, “Our Father in Heaven” have, in fact, been heard by such a Father as their Father, for their whole lives.
As someone who spends a lot of time in the broader Evangelicalical, conversionist tradition, I would say that the same Spirit that drew me to entrust myself to the work of Christ and make my confession publicly has filled the hearts of my LGBTQ siblings to lead them to confess the name of Jesus.
In each case, God is rendering a judgment. God is rendering a judgment by receiving and gifting the Spirit and uniting to Christ and adopting us into God’s family.
At rock bottom, this is the judgement I have made with regard to my LGBTQ siblings: when weighing the danger of seemingly rejecting or closing my ears to the scriptures that would seem to say that embracing them as they are is not ok over against the danger of rejecting the present work of the Spirit of God that marks them out as God’s beloved children just as clearly (and muddily, at times) as it marks me, I judged rejecting the current manifestation of the Spirit of God to be the greater danger.
To call LGBTQ siblings our sisters and brothers and siblings is to acknowledge that God has said something. It is to acknowledge that God has made them part of this messy family of ours. To affirm them as part of our family is to enter into the lifelong business of figuring out how to love them as part of us, rather than loving them as those who have rejected the family name and the family way of life.
I am affirming that they have been washed, justified, sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. And with that affirmation, I hear the divine voice, as spoken to Peter, “What I have made clean, do not you make common.”
Not Affirming All Morality
My friend was concerned about being heard as the judge of someone’s overall morality. I get that.
In fact, it is important for me to say that to be “affirming” is not only to not affirm someone’s morality generally, it is not to affirm a person’s or group’s sexual morality in particular.
Follow me here.
What many of my traditionalist conversation partners assume is that by accepting LGBTQ people into the church I have given up entirely on sexual morality as a part of the Christian life. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What I am saying is that the gender of a person’s partner is not a defining marker of whether a particular relationship or sexual encounter is moral or immoral.
Here are a couple of examples.
Adultery. Adultery is violation of the marriage covenant. It is a violation of the promise to give ourselves exclusively to our partner. A married gay couple could either live faithfully within such a covenant or one or both partners could be guilty of adultery–just like a married heterosexual couple.
Whether or not someone is sexually moral when measured against the standard of adultery is not determined by their own gender or whether their gender is the same, different, or opposite the partner’s.
Pederasty/Pedophilia. An adult who has sex with someone who is under age is abusing their power differential in order to have sex with a minor. This is a heinous abuse of strength, status differential, and the gift of sex.
Its immorality has nothing to do with the gender of the person committing the act or the gender of the person so violated.
Affirming the Affirmation of God
So when I “affirm” my LGBTQ siblings, what I’m saying is, “So then, God has also granted LGBTQ people the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:8). I am not saying that I have analyzed every facet of (every one of) their lives and found that it meets my or God’s approval.
I am saying that as our siblings we are all one people. This means that we all sit together at the table as we discern what the moral life of the people of God should look like in our own place and time. These are questions over which I debate and disagree strongly with my “straight” Christian friends, even while continuing to call them Christian. The same will not doubt prove to be the case with my LGBTQ Christian friends.
And even so, I will continue to call them Christian.
Featured image courtesy of Drama Queen, Flikr Creative Commons