God pursued me with compassion’
By Kristin Johnson, Executive Director,OnebyOne, March 27, 2006
The mission of OnebyOne is ministerial, and yet OnebyOne is political in that it claims that Jesus can and wants to bring healing to those who have unwanted same-sex attractions. The decision to disregard Presbyterian constitutional law and exonerate the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr for conducting at least two same-sex wedding ceremonies is disturbing because, unlike secular society, the Church does not have the luxury of deciding its own morality.
As a Christian woman who has struggled with same-sex attraction and engaged in a lesbian relationship, I understand the desperate need for acceptance. Though I know the Lord accepted me, I wanted the Lord to accept and sanctify my desires and my relationship with a woman. I was angry with God for giving me desires for intimacy and then denying me the right to experience this intimacy.
Many Christians who accept themselves or their children as homosexuals believe strongly that God does, indeed, sanction homosexuality and that to deny this homosexual love and identity is to deny something God has intended.
It is, in fact, unloving and hateful to deny people the right to be loved. However, is that what we as a Church are doing when we fight against same-sex marriage and promote ex-gay ministries such as OnebyOne? Are we being hateful by denying people the right to be loved? When Jesus upheld marriage between a man and a woman as the standard and said, “Let no man separate” or deviate from this standard, was he being hateful?
I had to ask myself that question as I struggled with my own homosexuality. Was God denying me the right to be loved? I went back and forth: If God is love and he loves me and wants me to be loved, homosexuality must be OK. But if Scripture is true and homosexuality falls short of God’s design and intent, then God must be unfair and cruel to have plagued me with these desires.
As I questioned God’s character, God remained faithful to me. He pursued me with compassion, understanding why I struggled with same-sex attraction. God spoke to my mind and heart until I realized that he wasn’t trying to deny me love by telling me to turn from homosexuality; he was trying to give me the true love I craved – his love and the love to be found in his body, the Church.
It is not the need to be loved that is a sin; it is the running from God’s love to find his love and provision in a counterfeit that is a sin. Many gay Christians would say they are not running from God and that they feel God’s love and acceptance as they embrace their homosexuality. I don’t question their feelings. But just as the Israelites did, we can continue to acknowledge Yahweh as the Supreme God while at the same time setting up our own high places to worship the personal gods of our choosing. We all do this, in fact. It seems harmless and practical and even open-minded, but to God it is an offense. By trusting in other gods to provide for our needs as we continue to pay lip service to Yahweh, we betray our relationship with God and deny all he promises to be for us and provide for us. When the Israelites did this, they ended up as exiles and slaves in Babylon.
This is the tragedy of the PJC’s acquittal of Jane Spahr – that we deny God’s power in our lives and in the lives of those who would be healed. May we remember Jesus as he entered Jerusalem and said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:37-38).
My prayer is that we as Presbyterians and Christians in his Church will be like our Lord who reached out to broken and desperate people and told them that they were his sons and daughters – his beloved children – and because of this he told them to sin no more and, instead, to come to him to meet their deepest needs for love. We, as Christ’s Body, are to reflect the image of God — full of compassion and clothed in his righteousness.
May this be a new day of truth and grace for the Presbyterian Church (USA).