Are We Willing to Die on the Hill of Love?

I recently met a non-Christian at an event for leaders in the nonprofit sector. When she found out I was an evangelical, she asked me, with great respect and complete sincerity, “Why are Christians so mean?” I suspect she was referring to American evangelicals. Christians are an incredibly diverse global population with more than 40,000 denominational faces.

I told her one answer is that the negative pictures of evangelicals are out of proportion with reality. It can seem like every single American evangelical is on a witch hunt for various people or causes that anger them, but that’s just not my experience with the majority of American evangelicals I know. And I’m sure that the woman who asked me this question wouldn’t, for instance, characterize the friend attending this event with her (an evangelical Christian) as “mean.” We need to be careful not to buy into the caricature created by a vocal minority of evangelicals who do not represent our community very well.

But another answer to that question is that American evangelicals hold their theological and social views with deep conviction. We tend to add a layer of moral certitude to our positions. This can sometimes be helpful in the struggle for justice. But if every issue becomes the social or theological hill we choose to die on (or to kill on), then there are too many of us killing or dying on too many hills.

In part, this dogmatic tendency stems from the evangelical belief in absolute truth. In a world gone radically relativistic, this belief is a good thing. But when these convictions are challenged, it can feel like an assault against universal truth itself. We may fear that if one of our beliefs needs correction, then our presupposition about any truths that transcend time and culture are at risk.

One of the hills that many evangelicals have chosen to die on is the hill of human sexuality. As in the tragic schism in 1054 between the church in the East and the church in the West, or the fifth-century bloodbath that accompanied the debate about whether Christ had two natures or one, this issue has become a dividing line between believers, and I fear we are sometimes in rebellion against Christ’s command for his followers to love one another.

Under what conditions may divorce be permissible? Adultery? Abuse? Abandonment? Even among evangelicals the answer has shifted over the past 30 years. How the Anglican Church dealt with human sexuality underwent scrutiny and adaptation when their missionaries encountered polygamous communities. The question of LGBTQ marriage has been exploding churches and Christian communities for the past 10 years and likely will continue a decade or two more. Christians recognize there is something sacred about sex and we desperately want to get it right.

This is not to say that we ought to refrain from coming to any conclusions or holding deep convictions on the complex matter of human sexuality. It is to say that we must find a way to bring grace and truth closer together. It is possible, for example, to conclude that God designed the human person for monogamous, heterosexual, married intercourse and still oppose forms of oppression that beset the gay community. I believe one can be pro–heterosexual marriage and pro–justice for all. Here’s how.

A Kingdom Perspective

One of the things I like about the organization for which I work, InterVarsity, is that we take issues of justice seriously. Racism, sexism, violence, exploitation, corruption, greed — these are things we talk about among ourselves and with our students and faculty. We consider how our understanding of God and God’s kingdom affects our perspective on immigration or climate change or #blacklivesmatter or gun violence because these issues are not irrelevant to our faith nor to the discipleship of students and faculty. Indeed, as staff members who are followers of Jesus, it’s our job to raise these issues and to wrestle with them in the context of our world. We may disagree on exactly how biblical faith is best expressed in many of these areas, but we care about the justice components inherent in them.

The same is true for violence, abuse, and criminalization when it is directed toward the LGBTQ community. Even as we embrace a heterosexual ethic, what does it look like for us to acknowledge the horrible history we as believers have had with the gay community? It was largely the Christian community who institutionalized the criminalization of LGBTQ people in our country until the early 60s, and it is the Christian community leading the way in criminalizing queer people in other countries. This is to say nothing of believers who use the Christian faith to justify degrading language, behavior, and even violence against the LGBTQ community — even against fellow believers who are queer.

Justice for Those with Whom We Disagree

Pursuing justice is not contingent upon agreeing with the person against whom an injustice is being perpetrated. For example, we do not agree theologically with Muslims, but we speak and act in their defense when those in power are degrading or destroying them. In 2011, Christians joined hands around Muslim protesters during Egypt’s uprising against Mubarak. Similarly, Muslims joined hands around Christian communities when Christians were blamed for toppling President Morsi’s regime in 2013. Or take the Taizé Christian Community in France, which sheltered Jewish refugees in the early 1940s and former Nazi prisoners of war in the mid-to-late 1940s. Justice does not ask whether a victim believes all the right things before acting.

And justice should never be withheld. When the gay community is the subject of violence, we must speak up. When gay men and women are imprisoned or executed in various countries, we must speak up. When our gay friends are the subject of inappropriate humor or degrading comments, we must speak up. What’s more, when our gay brothers and sisters in Christ exemplify the gospel through their lives and actions, we should celebrate them, holding them up as examples.

Jesus had serious theological issues with Samaritans, as we see in his encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4. But Jesus honored her, much to the chagrin of his disciples. Jesus sent her as an evangelist. Jesus even used a Samaritan person as a parabolic example of the gospel imperative to “love thy neighbor” in Luke 10. Despite serious theological differences with the Samaritan community, Jesus loved and served them without requiring them first to denounce their beliefs.

Whether the subjects of violence, oppression, and injustice are Muslim or atheist or transgender or gay or black, it is incumbent upon the Christ-follower to oppose the oppressor and bring relief to the oppressed. Standing against evil is always, always the right thing to do.

What Is Justice?

Of course, I believe organizations have the prerogative to restrict leadership positions to those who adhere to various standards that are integral to their values. It is not unjust for gay-affirming organizations and churches to say that only those who align with gay-affirming principles can serve in leadership positions, nor is it unjust for some denominations to call all clergy to celibacy, nor for some to call their leaders to a specific sexual ethic. God whittled down those serving with Gideon through something as arbitrary as how they drank water (Judges 7:4-6). Christian organizations must decide what sorts of beliefs and behaviors will mark their faith journey, and sexual ethics may be among those distinguishing characteristics.

This may cause those in the queer community to see partnership against oppression coming from those who believe in a traditional sexual ethic as disingenuous. “How can you stand up against my mistreatment in society and still believe I cannot hold leadership positions in your fellowship?” they might ask. But the same, of course, can be asked of gay-affirming fellowships who might disallow a black pastor with a traditional belief about sexuality from teaching that belief in their churches but readily stand up for the same black pastor when he or she is experiencing racism.

Here’s another example. I am a pacifist. This makes my relationship with fellow believers in the armed services, or who embrace their veteran status as a chief part of their identity, a bit more complex. Do my biblical convictions about nonviolence mean that I am disparaging a central part of their personhood? What about denominations that exclude from leadership those who believe in the death penalty or who serve in the police force (as some Mennonite strains might)? Are they unjustly discriminating? I believe that I can stand up for service men and women when they are discriminated against, or stand with veterans who are homeless, without violating my conscience and convictions about nonviolence.

Followers of Jesus are compelled to grant dignity to all, and are to specially honor fellow believers who follow Christ as Lord and Savior, even though we may take issue with parts of their practice or belief. Our position on an issue or adoption of a doctrine does not give us license for hatred. Neither should defending the rights of others mean we must agree with everything those whom we are defending believe.

We must move beyond the theological partisan politics that have marked the church around the question of sexuality and gender. Those who hold to a traditional sexual ethic must be willing to stand up with and learn from fellow Christ-followers who do not. And queer Christians should be willing to offer their resources, wisdom, and partnership to communities who disagree with them on sexual ethics.

Christians are to be known for their love for one another, to say nothing of the command to love our enemies. It is time for us to be known as those who are willing to die on the hill of love, even while maintaining a fidelity to our best (and often divergent) understanding of sexual ethics.