Are we Christians that blinded by our own ‘plight’ that we are utterly unable to comprehend the actions of others?
Are we that blind to how systemic and institutional stuff works that we think our not being complicit in particular actions means that we, as individuals, bear no responsibility for how people have acted in the name of our belief or institutions in the past?
It doesn’t feel, for most of us Christians, like we’ve been oppressors or haters, so it feels unjust to us to be hated and oppressed… but while we haven’t felt that way others have felt oppressed and hated in our name — and worse, in the name of Jesus. And how we behave now can either hurt or heal. And we’re picking the ‘hurt’ option.
Are we so tone deaf that we think now is the time for us to be sounding out doomsday scenarios and trying to turn the recently liberated into the new oppressors?
How do we think those recently liberated should behave in a moment of ascendency (or liberation)? What do we think their cause should be?
I’m reading post after post, think piece after think piece, about how Christians are now the victims, when we should be, in my opinion, convincing our culture that we are not perpetrators. We’re claiming to be the victims while a government body investigates our systemic failure when it comes to abuse; when our stocks are at an all time low because this Royal Commission follows years of revelations about members of the church behaving badly with the most vulnerable people in our care.
I’m reading about how the LGBTIQ+ community hates us despite claiming “love is love” from people who don’t understand that for decades this community has felt hated by us; whether through sins of omission — not speaking up about horrid laws and a culture that permits the persecution of members of that community — or because our teaching about sexuality was used to prop those laws and culture up and to demonise these neighbours as an ‘other’ more broken than your average Aussie. I read one conservative commentator this week who continues to insist on calling homosexuals ‘sodomites’… Here’s what Ezekiel says was at the heart of Sodom’s sin
“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” — Ezekiel 16:49-50
At the moment this sounds more like the perception of ‘brand Christian’ in Australia than anyone who might oppose us. The sort of Christianity that sees us playing the victim rather than caring for victims.
I read a piece that claims ‘the hate campaign begins as #lovewins’… an utterly abominable and self centred misreading of history. Hate against the LGBTIQ+ community has been happening for years; this was, for them, a campaign to eradicate hate… hate that WE HAVE PERPETRATED.
“Let to be known that on the December 7, 2017 – the day in Australian Parliamentary history when “love won” – the hate campaign truly began. Yesterday, supporters of same-sex marriage took to Twitter to celebrate by tweeting, “Eat sh-t Lyle.” A reference to Lyle Shelton, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby.”
What utter trollop. The hate has been going on for years; this date might be the moment we start to feel it institutionally (from the government and culture), whereas, in the past, these institutions were acting in our interest.
Do we not understand that the LGBTIQ+ community has legitimate claims here; that they’ve been oppressed and hated — not just by Christians, but we weren’t exactly standing against it — and that they themselves saw marriage equality as one step in a long line of steps towards de-systematising this hatred. We might agree or disagree with this step, this solution, or other steps — but I don’t think we can, in the face of the evidence, disagree with the foundational premise.
LGBTIQ+ campaigners can legitimately claim to be campaigning against systemic hate even if we don’t agree with their means. Safe Schools is an anti-bullying campaign because LGBTIQ+ kids get bullied for being different. I know. I was, by omission, part of this in my public school. Safe Schools might adopt a means to achieve this end that I don’t love — I’m not sold on the queer/marxist agenda of eradicating any difference between people being the solution to this oppression. We spent the SSM campaign trying to make it about Safe Schools and our opposition to it. We spent the campaign APPARENTLY ADVOCATING AGAINST AN ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN.
You know what that makes us look like?
BULLIES.
Bullies who are attached to an institution that has systemically ABUSED CHILDREN and COVERED UP THAT ABUSE.
Where’s our better option? Where’s an anti-bullying program from Christians that does the job better than Safe Schools? Put up or shut up.
I read a piece, celebrated by Christian conservatives on social media, that declared the ‘Rainbow-haters have declared war on no voters’...
And their fears are already being realised.
Within a day of the marriage bill being passed, an academic from the University of Technology Sydney was describing it as a “mandate to deliver… LGBTQI+-inclusive sexuality education” aka “Safe Schools” queer theory. And there was an online petition to strip tax-free charitable status from Shelton’s ACL.
As we saw overseas, LGBTQI vigilantes don’t stop when same-sex marriage becomes law. They want to hound into submission every last dissenter.
You know, ‘rainbow haters’ used to be a bit different. We’re talking about a community, who when they lived in Nazi Germany, we marked with pink triangles and exterminated… literally ‘hounded into submission’ and treated as dissenters… that’s some evocative imagery right there. We’re talking about that happening less than 70 years ago. On a whim I googled ‘set dog on gay man’ and was distressed but unsurprised to find this story about a POLICE OFFICER allegedly doing just that in England in 2016. Stories from other countries are apparently fair game in this space — we’re yet to have an Australian baker before the courts… Here in Australia we’re talking about a community who, for many years, could be murdered in Queensland and have that charge downgraded to manslaughter because of ‘gay panic’ — the idea that a gay person might be not hitting you but hitting on you was reason for self defence. We’re talking about a community who face a greater than average risk of suicide and a bunch of other mental health stuff. A community for whom an SBS feature on gay hate crimes reported:
“NSW now has a task force, Operation Parrabell, reviewing 88 deaths including 30 unsolved cases from the 1970s to the early 2000s as potential gay-hate murders, most of which weren’t treated as such at the time. Those 88 deaths are the worst of the tragedies.”
I read a piece that says this isn’t a ‘slippery slope’ but a precipice (it at least had the poetry of a CS Lewis analogy and a God who blows us back from over the edge). Look. Let’s talk about the slippery slope thing. The way the no campaign operated turned the postal survey into a postal survey on the rest of the agenda. It passed with a massive majority. The way to avoid things being a slippery slope, when people have a destination they are working towards, is to treat the pathway there as steps — and to offer a better pathway to a better destination at key junctions along the journey. Not to stand at the top and yell that it’s a long way down once you start. This has the added benefit of being more closely tied to reality where even those with a radical agenda see the process as involving steps, and same sex marriage being not the first, but part of a continuum (repealing and changing other laws that allowed violence against that community were also a step). Of course these steps build towards a destination and create a momentum that is harder to turn once you’re moving, but perhaps for the LGBTIQ+ activists it doesn’t feel like a slippery slope, but a long, uphill battle to push against the weight of systemic injustice and a culture of antipathy that has, at times, been fuelled by even the most well-meaning, loving, members of the church (not just those who proof text their hatred from Leviticus).
Let me be clear. It’s not hatred to disagree with somebody; I do believe that same sex sexual activity is sinful, much as I believe that watching porn is sinful, or sex outside of marriage is sinful, or selfish heterosexual sex in marriage is sinful.
And let me be clear. There are some people on the ‘yes’ side who hate Christians. I guess I’m just struggling to see why they don’t ALL hate Christians.
It’s Christianity that brings the ‘golden rule’ of treat others as you would have them treat you, a command to love your neighbours as you love yourself, and a crucified king to show you what sacrificial love for the ‘other’ looks like. This is the Christian ethic. The wisdom of the world is ‘do unto others’ what they have done for you; and ‘an eye for an eye’…
Let me be absolutely clear — I believe a better path for gay equality is found in Jesus. In finding your identity in him not in your sexual attraction; and letting him shape how you live. I believe the image of God, renovated in Jesus so that we live as ‘the image of Jesus’ in the world is a better source of dignity and equality. I believe we do have better and more imaginative things to offer in the realm of gay rights than legal or symbolic equality, though not lesser things. I also believe we’re not going to be heard on any of this until we deal with the baggage and the perception it has created of wielding power in our own interests for too long. We’ve been too caught up in the institutions of the state to the point that we can’t help but be accused of being complicit in injustices perpetrated by the state. We’ve also been infected by this love for power in a way that has stopped us calling sin sin, and led us to cover up oppression rather than give up power.
We’re reaping the cost, not just of the campaign, but of decades of institutional and community memory of our position on this issue.
You can doubt this reality all you want; but here’s three things to consider.
- The testimony of celibate (or straight married) same sex attracted brothers and sisters in Christ supports this narrative.
- The testimonies of real people in these stories supports this narrative; and you could corroborate this by asking your LGBTQI+ friends.
- Perception is reality. Even if these things aren’t true; this is the landscape on which the campaign for LGBTQI+ equality is being fought and changes established.
In the eyes of the watching world we are an oppressor and we’re now behaving exactly like a bully or abuser when they get caught out — projecting. Making this all ‘their problem’. It’s awful.
STOP IT.
We were tone deaf in the marriage debate about the ‘rights’ side of the argument and the importance of equality (and symbolism for establishing that equality) which meant our symbolic olive branches never appeased (civil unions anybody?). We’re becoming even more tone deaf as we operate as sore losers when society still perceives us as the powerful (and abusive) oppressors.
What does it look like for us to repent in dust and ashes. That’s what we should be doing. Not donning the war paint.