Compassion for the LGBT Community

All that I have is Yours, dear Lord.  Let me hear Your voice and speak Your words, for I believe that my fruitfulness comes from You alone. 

In response to the recent upheaval regarding Bruce Jenner, I feel compelled to share some of what the Lord has done for me in giving me a heart of compassion for the LGBT community.

Several years ago I found myself studying piano in a music program with two gay men.  There is nothing unusual about this situation, but at the time I barely knew anything about homosexuality, and their behavior baffled and repulsed me.  I could not even bring myself to speak to these men—if I tried, the words would stick in my throat.  I hated them.

After years of silence between me and my gay colleagues, I was asked to serve as the rehearsal pianist for the production of a musical, and I found that the role of the male protagonist had been given to one of these men.  The months of rehearsal which followed were miserable for me.  Never had I been exposed to such filthy jokes and behavior.  I felt violated, and my hatred grew.  Even though I was working in close quarters with the actors, during all those months I never spoke a word to the gay man in the leading role. 

Opening night arrived, and before the auditorium began to fill with our audience, the director assembled the cast for a few last motivational words.  To my surprise, she announced to everyone that she had had a disturbing dream about me.  In her dream, I had quit my job as accompanist because I was offended over her copious use of profanity.  It was nice to feel like my bitterly insulted purity had been noticed, even if on a subconscious level.

The transition to graduate school brought me face to face with homosexuality, and this time I didn’t have the option of hiding from it.  The study of music demands deep, personal investment of emotion and extreme sensitivity.  Our society’s stereotypical definition of gay men is a perfect match for this discipline, and as a result these young men are often funneled in the direction of classical music.  I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that easily 30-40% of the men that I knew in graduate school were gay.  As I matured, I was becoming more comfortable around homosexual people in general, but still could not bring myself to forge any kind of real relationship.  In my eyes, the homosexual agenda was driven by people who were obsessed with sex, and who knowingly paraded their evil ways while rejecting every good and decent standard of morality.  I still hated them.

All of this changed over the course of a few short months.  One of the first things to happen is that I actually made friends with gay men.  To my surprise, they didn’t talk about sex all the time.  They didn’t flaunt their life decisions in front of me, demanding that I congratulate them or even agree with them.  In fact, I was especially surprised to find that they were kinder, more decent, more helpful and more loyal than most of my unsaved heterosexual friends.  In a music program where, for a period of time, I was the only professing Christian, I actually felt safer with my gay friends.  Where the straight circles cracked jokes that made me blush, flaunted their infidelity and lust, and mocked me for being different, the gay circles were polite and unwaveringly respectful of my Christian worldview.  My belief that homosexuals were always mean-spirited, rude, filthy people was crumbling.  My belief that heterosexual sin was always a notch above homosexual sin was crumbling. 

I remember one turning point quite vividly.  After rehearsal one day I struck up conversation with a young gay man whom I will call Daniel.  We had talked many times before that day, but this time Daniel was really opening up his heart to me, and I found myself with a golden opportunity to share the Gospel with him.  As our conversation progressed, I felt more and more free to be completely honest with him.  I shared my own struggles and how Jesus had carried me through them.  We talked about homosexuality, and I told him very clearly that I believed homosexuality was a sin.  I’ll never forget Daniel’s response.  He never looked away.  He looked me straight in the eye and smiled.  He didn’t start yelling about intolerance or Christian bigots.  He was calm and kind, and told me that he respected my beliefs.  We were even closer friends after that, and I never doubted his loyalty or his honesty toward me.  I shared Christ with him many, many more times.  We had our picture taken together when we graduated. 

The biggest turning point was yet to come.  A book called “The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert” made its way into my hands, and I devoured it in one long, hungry bite.  The author, Rosaria Butterfield, had once been an open, devoted lesbian who was deeply invested in advancing the homosexual cause.  When she met Jesus, however, everything changed. She describes her “Train-Wreck Conversion” as the most “traumatic” experience of her life.  He asked her to give up everything to follow Him.  Literally everything.  Every person must receive a new identity when they come to faith in Jesus.  The old must die so the New can live.  When a homosexual dies to their old identity, though, you can actually see it happening—as though their skin was transparent and you could watch their organs being replaced with new ones.  Rosaria left her life partner, her job, and her whole life behind.  She is now a mother and the wife of a pastor.  She left her old identity to be consumed by a new One.

You see, there is a type of so-called Christian who can talk a good talk and convince people that he or she has truly given everything over to Jesus, all the while reserving a corner in which to build his or her own kingdom of self-righteousness and human wisdom.  The blazing, consuming life of Christ is confused with the poisonous face of religion and churchianity.  When a homosexual person truly comes to Jesus, though, the old kingdom must fall, and nothing but the true life of Jesus can make it fall.  It is never anything short of devastating.

When Jesus comes into the heart of a person, He intends to clean it out.  Completely.  Not just the bad stuff (my addictions, my lust, my anger, my laziness), but also the stuff I think is good.  In reality, we don’t have anything good in us.  All of our righteousness, the best we have to offer, is like filthy rags to the Most High God (Isaiah 64:6).  It all has to die.  We’re not allowed to keep even a little of our old selves—it must all burn, and in its place the life of Christ must dwell.  Actually, Rosaria didn’t give up more than any other person who is crucified with Christ.  He demands it all.  I don’t own anything, I don’t have rights to anything.  I go where He goes, I stay where He stays, I eat the food He gives.  I am not a pianist.  I am not homosexual.  I am not heterosexual.  I am dead.  The life He gives in place of my death, though, is sweeter than anything I have laid down to follow Him. 

Rosaria didn’t give up more than anyone else who is crucified with Christ, but she exemplified to me all that I still needed to give up in order to truly be crucified with Christ.

I remember sitting on my bed and crying for hours after hearing her story the first time.  I knew it was my story too.  I knew that her traumatic encounter with Jesus Christ was exactly what He wanted from each of His children, and oh how much I had held back from His redeeming, all-consuming fire!

My stony heart was shattered.  I found myself with a beating heart of flesh that loved my gay friends more passionately and honestly than I could have ever imagined.  I knew I was feeling the Lord’s relentless devotion and furious love for these people.  And I felt no better than them, and I no longer felt insulted by their sin.  All I knew was that I stood no closer to grace than they did, and I marveled at the strength of the cross to save my equally broken soul.  I actually trembled with love for all of them, and I knew they could find wholeness in Jesus.

What a Savior You are, Jesus!  You do not shrink from our grief, You do not distance Yourself from our misery and twisted ways!  You come and make Your place with us, You come to carry us into realms of glory and peace and massively joyful righteousness! Let me make my home with You, under the shelter of Your grace over my life!

My new project was to find a way to invite Rosaria Butterfield to come and speak at my school.  It seemed like an enormously far-fetched plan, and I was anticipating a negative and potentially dangerous reaction from the LGBT groups on campus.  By the Lord’s grace alone, I managed to contact Mrs. Butterfield and, to my surprise, she agreed to come and speak at my school free-of-charge.  As I expected, there was a strong reaction to her upcoming visit on campus.  It was not, however, what I expected.  

One day I found the president of the Gay Pride club demonstrating on the lawn with several members of his organization.  We started talking about the upcoming event with Mrs. Butterfield, which he was already aware of.  Our conversation lasted for almost an hour.  I will never forget it.  We discussed homosexuality from many different angles, and he was exceedingly kind and polite.  I’m not sure if any of my remarks made a dent in his worldview, but some of his statements remain lodged in my memory.  He told me about how a close friend of his had been attacked and beaten severely at a gas station, simply because a gang of straight guys thought he looked gay.  He told me about being bullied and hatefully abused by so-called Christians.  All I could do was apologize on their behalf.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry.”  He promised me that the Gay Pride club would be present at Rosaria’s speech.

Rosaria was as gracious and poised as I had imagined her to be.  She told her story to an almost-full auditorium of cautious and interested people—a mixture of transgender students, campus crusaders, cross-dressing men, and church-going ladies in jean jumpers and tight buns.  As I expected, she left ample time for a Q&A session afterward.  There were some honest, heartfelt questions, and there were some selfish and angry comments (from homosexuals and Christians alike).  She responded to everything with grace.  The Gay Pride club lined up to talk with her after the event was over, and she stayed with them for hours.

Today, I have the awesome privilege of rubbing shoulders with close and dear friends who were once practicing homosexuals, but now live out a totally transformed and powerful life through Jesus Christ.  They have challenged me in my faith and every day they serve as a rebuke and an encouragement to me.  They are a constant reminder to me of the power of the Cross and the all-consuming life of Jesus.  There is no distance too great for His love to reach, and having His life is worth more than anything else.

Christian, before you post on Facebook, before you open your mouth to speak, before you close your heart around a hateful thought, please look up and see the Cross.  Please examine your own life, and consider the cost of your own forgiveness in the death of God’s Son.  If the perfect Lamb of God would sacrifice Himself and carry your sins to Calvary, then surely you can ask Jesus to help you love someone who is no more guilty than you.  Immerse yourself in the remembrance of the Lord’s grace, and ask Him to show you the places in your own heart that you have still not surrendered to Him.  He wants all of it.  Then, in the humility of Christ, trusting Him to guide you into opportunity and supply you with His love, be willing to walk alongside those who do not know Him yet.

If anyone is reading this who struggles with or walks in same-sex attraction, please know that the true Jesus is not pushing you away.  He wants you as His child—not His robot, not His cowering slave.  The feelings and behavior that you experience are natural to the flesh, and you cannot overcome them in the strength of your flesh.  If you try, you will only fail again and again.  Paul discusses the futility of the flesh in Romans 7, saying

^“…I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7:15-25)

The life of Christ is the only thing that can actually overcome the flesh.  The great gift of salvation is that we can truly depart from sin and live in righteousness—not in our strength, but in His.  The battle has been won, and you are invited to rest in it.  He offers you new life.  I would also be more than happy to talk with you.  You are loved, you have been sought after, and you are greatly valued.

“I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.  I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord,
    I will answer the heavens,
    and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
    and they shall answer Jezreel,
and I will sow her for Myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
    and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
    and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Hosea 2:18-23