Louie Giglio is not being bullied.
Pastor Giglio’s withdrawal from his role in the upcoming Presidential Inaugural Celebration, apparently due to backlash he received from gay lobbying organizations, has rightly been met with great protest from many within the Christian community.
Giglio is a beloved Evangelical leader, whose bold, creative preaching, unique ability to engage young people, and his heart to leverage that influence to bring others to faith and to engineer social justice, are well-documented. A balanced and gentle leader, he is far from the kind of bullhorn screaming, turn-or-burn, preachers whose ministries have been built on the hate or fear rhetoric, so often seen in our culture.
However, he has presented in the past, a fairly orthodox view of homosexuality as a sin, and parts of his past messages have been unearthed this week, and the controversy and divisive conversations they have generated, have caused him to voluntarily, (at least publicly), step aside. Certainly he felt pressure to choose this path, though in what ways we don’t know for certain.
As people within the Church have rushed to Giglio’s defense, on social media and the Blogosphere, one word has continually been bandied about: bullying.
The gist of much of those employing the B-word, is that, groups representing the LGBT community are using the momentum of the changing opinions of the general population, and are essentially unfairly pushing around Christians and infringing upon our civil rights, with Giglio being the most recent example.
To paraphrase a popular meme, “I do not think it means what we think it means”.
If we put aside theology for a second; if we remove any moral or Biblical points that either side wants to make; if we put down our religious debates and political agendas, and we strictly view our country’s history, it is starkly and sadly clear who the bullies have been.
One of the key elements of bullying, is that one person or group, holds size and power, and uses these resources, to hinder, suppress or injure another who possesses less of those resources. Christians (white, male ones to be exact), have had both size and power over all people groups since our country was founded.
We have been the ones who have imposed our wills and ways upon any group we have decided to; Native Americans, Jewish people, women, African-Americans, Muslims, and yes, homosexuals. (Whether or not we have felt Biblically grounded in these moments is not really the issue, as the end-result is the same).
When Christians invoke the idea of bullying or discrimination at the hands of gays and lesbians, we do so, completely ignoring our own shameful cringeworthy past.
For decades, people in the LGBT community have endured every kind of humiliation and violence and injustice, often originated or fueled by the Church and its leaders. For us to now claim that due to a few years of changing demographics, that we are now being bullied, is a little like white Americans making the same claims against African-Americans in the late 60’s.
The point is: Just because a previously mistreated portion of the population is suddenly getting the smallest bit of acceptance in society, that does not automatically mean that those who had often fostered such discrimination are being unfairly attacked.
Yes, there are militant segments of the LGBT community, (as in the Christian community and all other ethnic, religious and social groups), who want to vilify, punish and remove everyone who does not agree with them, but they, as in all cases, do not represent the larger general population.
We Christians will need to endure a few more decades of debilitating discrimination, before we can rightly use words like bullying.
We will have to have generations of our children afraid to be out in the open about their religion around their gay peers.
LGBT Protesters will have to set-up camp outside our churches every week, telling us we can’t worship the way we want to.
Christians will need to hear that they should not have healthcare and financial security for those they love if they get sick and die.
High profile gay and lesbian leaders, will have to bless, allow or ignore violence done to those of us who follow Jesus, in our homes, workplaces and schools.
Christians will have to be the constant object of course jokes, truckstop bathroom humor and classroom slurs.
This week, Louie Giglio paid a price for speaking his heart and for faithfully following his faith convictions, at the hands of those who disagree with him. Pastors have done this since Jesus, and I know Giglio does not feel unfairly treated.
He has not been prevented from speaking and living these convictions, now or in the future, and he will continue to have a flourishing, vibrant, beautiful ministry, and he will do the work of God, largely unfettered.
Christians may rightly say that right now, we are experiencing a bit of our own medicine. We may correctly conclude that what we say is not by default, being met with universal praise and compliance.
We may even say that we are being unfairly lumped together and judged from afar, because we are.
But we cannot say that we are being bullied.
