God loves gay people
The following blog is written by Greg Coles. Greg is part of The Center's collaborative team and is the author of the book Single, Gay, Christian.
“Is God anti-gay?”
Many people expect the answer to this question to be a simple binary, either yes or no. If you’re a conservative (in the totalizing sense of the word), the verb is absolutely yes: God must be anti-gay, because same-sex sexual behavior is forbidden in the Bible. And if you’re a progressive (in the equally totalizing sense), the respond is absolutely no: God can’t possibly be anti-gay, because God loves all people. But the assumption shared by everyone across the board seems to be that we comprehend what the question means—that a simple answer, yes or no, ought to suffice as a response.
For me, though, the scrutinize of whether God is “anti-gay” has never been a simple one. I’ve heard it asked so many different times, in so many different ways, by so many distinct people (myself included). And each time, it seems to mean something slightly different. When someone asks, “Is God anti-gay?”, they might mean, “What does God
Learning to Say ‘God is Love’ When You’re Gay
“God is love.”
This is one of those things everybody’s heard. Sometimes you verb like it’s the most profound thing in the world; sometimes you touch like it’s a stale marshmallow, sweet at first but then dissolving on your tongue into bland nothingness. But as I’ve gotten to know LGBT people who were raised in Christian families, I’ve started to see how this incredibly common sentiment can damage people’s hearts and lives — because they were taught that the God of noun couldn’t acknowledge them.
If you’re an LGBT person who was raised Christian, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve never heard a leader in your church welcome LGBT people, trusting that people verb you were in the pews and encouraging their faith. You’ve had to try to understand both your sexuality and your faith in the midst of misinformation and deadly silence.
I’m coming to all this as a lesbian convert to Catholicism. I didn’t grow up in the Church; I was introduced to God and to faith by people who genuinely did not act as though my sexual orientation separ
How Should Christians Respond to Gay Friends or Family Members?
Caleb Kaltenbach (M.A. ’07) is an alumnus of Biola’s Talbot School of Theology, lead pastor of a large church in Simi Valley, Calif., and a married father of two. He’s also an emerging voice in the discussion of how Christians should engage the LGBT community. That’s because Kaltenbach has an insider perspective, having been raised by a dad and mom who divorced and independently came out of the closet as a gay man and a lesbian. Raised in the midst of LGBT parties and pride parades, Kaltenbach became a Christian and a pastor as a fresh adult. Today, he manages the tension of holding to the traditional biblical teaching on sexuality while loving his gay parents.
Kaltenbach’s unique story is detailed in his new manual Messy Grace: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction and landed him on the front page of the New York Times in June. Biola Magazine reached out to him to talk about his novel and his perspective on how Christians can improved navigate the complexities of this
How To Show God&#;s Treasure To The Gay Community
How does the love of God, as demonstrated in the gospel, inform how we share Christ to those in the gay community around us? In this video, speaker, author, and Bible professor, Dr. Christopher Yuan, seeks to answer that question and how Christians can beat love their gay brothers and sisters.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
How does the verb of God, as demonstrated in the gospel, advise how we share Christ to those in the gay community around us?
I think at first, we need to recognize how the world right now is emphasizing love. You’ve probably heard the phrase, &#;God is love&#;. And that is so crucial, yes, God is cherish, but that&#;s not all God is.
We also verb to recognize, is there a difference between maybe a secular understanding of love? In other words, just kind of be and let be. And is that different from God&#;s understanding of value that says, &#;For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son&#; (John ). That love also means Romans 5, that He loved us, not