Last night, I attended a nonprofit event in Greensboro and had the chance to hear a message from Wade Davis, a former NFL player and an eloquent advocate for LGBT rights.
Davis’ powerful testimony included a statement which spoke loudly to my heart as a pastor and Christian. His words were, (and I am paraphrasing to the best of my recollection):
Closets aren’t for people. They’re for old coats and shoes and dust. I was never in the closet, I just couldn’t be honest with who I really was to the world around me. As a gay man, I’m not coming out of the closet. I’m inviting you in.
To me this was more than just a matter of semantics, or simply a clever bit of wordsmithing.
This was revelatory truth.
As much as I’ve tried to be an ally to the LGBT community, and to facilitate real conversation between it and the faith community, it’s a distinction that I’ve largely been oblivious to; the fact that so much of the public discussion about sexuality has put the onus on non-heterosexual people to make some grand public statement about their most private selves—to “come out”.
Even when this idea has been framed in the most positive light and with the greatest of intentions by straight supporters, it’s still always been about Them making a move toward Us.
The pressure’s been on gay people to reveal to and debate with strangers, intimate details about their lives in order to be engaged in this discussion; turning them into one-dimensional caricatures, only distinguished by the object of their affections and their inclinations to love.
They’ve been diagnosed and defined by heterosexual people, by their sexuality and reduced down to a few Bible verses that are often yelled from a distance, or thrown like virtual stones across online chasms.
I could be completely missing the heart of Davis’ words, but what I believe I heard him sharing, was a desperate desire to be truly known, to be approached as a complete person, and to be met in authentic relationship by the straight world; not as someone to change, or fix, or categorize, but as someone to understand, and hear, and value, and befriend, and love.
It’s something I hear often as I listen to people in the LGBT community too.
Over the course of his message, Davis continually shared the refrain of humanity as family, connected to one another and impacted by one another and responsible for one another.
He asserted that if we could all really know and live alongside people who weren’t like us, or believed or lived as we do, that we would treat all our differences… differently. I’m sure this is more true of the straight-gay divide in and around Christianity than almost anywhere else.
Distance between people always enables fear, it encourages stereotypes, it protects ignorance, it shuts down conversation, it only fosters more distance.
Not coincidentally, on the way to the venue last night, I and other attendees of the event, witnessed a group of bullhorn-yielding street corner preachers, shouting Scriptures at passers-by, warning people of Hell, and praying loud, showy prayers.
They were met on the opposite side of the street by a larger, louder crowd in response; holding whimsical signs, and providing sarcastic verbal counter punches. I laughed a bit at first, but later as I heard Davis’ words, I realized what a tragedy I’d witnessed.
Two groups of people, yelling from a distance; one attacking and the other defending, but neither being heard, neither being known, neither’s humanity allowed to be visible. They were no longer uniquely designed individuals in a shared journey, but anonymous soldiers on either side of a war.
And the most regretful thing about it all, is that Christians should be different.
When it comes to other people, even those we may disagree with, we should know better and do better. We have an example to follow; one who we claim to follow.
We have in Jesus, the greatest model of compassion and kindness ever to walk the planet, and that needs to count for something. It needs to influence how we as straight Christians interact with gay people, or we end-up simply being clanging cymbals, making a loud, loveless noise in their ears, and feeling justified to do so.
The idea of universal family or kinship that Davis talked about, is at the core of the Christian faith too; of all people made in the image of God, all creations of the same Creator, all children of the same Father, all equally flawed, all equally worthy of compassion. (The neighbor, Jesus says we are called to love as ourselves).
I think most people who follow Jesus really do want to see the world this way, but when things get uncomfortable, (and so many are extremely uncomfortable discussing sexuality and religion), many of us just do a really lousy job of getting along with our neighbors.
I’m convinced that Wade Davis’ words last night weren’t just well-placed ones meant to sound cool from a stage.
They were an honest invitation; an invitation to straight Christians, to move toward the LGBT community with the same decency and respect, and desire to listen, and intent to understand, that we would seek for ourselves.
Screaming from a pulpit, or shouting from a street corner, or sparring in a comments section, all do nothing to affirm our faith, nothing to reflect the character of Christ, and they do nothing to uphold the dignity of our LGBT brothers and sisters. We need a better and more Godly response, regardless of where our theology places us.
I think Wade Davis is right; that all this talk about sexuality has been extremely one-sided for far too long, especially in the Church.
Perhaps the first real move needs to be made by heterosexual believers who care enough to really know LGBT people; who want to hear their stories; who want to talk to them, as much as preach at them.
When it comes to working through these incredibly difficult conversations on theology and human sexuality, maybe the goal isn’t just getting gay people comfortable enough to “come out to us“ as straight Christians.
Maybe the best and most Christlike thing, is for us to discard the bullhorns and the signs and the yelling from a distance… and person-to-person, in real relationship, to lovingly step in.
