A CHRISTIAN VOICE FOR GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE: AN OPEN LETTER FROM JESUS TO 'CHRISTIAN' AMERICA, BY FRANK SCHAEFFER

Sunday, December 13, 2009

AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE: AN OPEN LETTER FROM JESUS TO 'CHRISTIAN' AMERICA, BY FRANK SCHAEFFER

Most of the institutional Church has defamed Christianity, Christ's Church, Christians worthy of the name, Jesus, and God by having a very long record of bearing false witness, degrading, and discriminating against minority groups, such as Gay people, that they feel are "safe" to persecute.

And, most of the leadership of the institutional Church and their gullible followers have the temerity to invoke God, Jesus, and the Bible, along with simplistic, erroneous, and irrational sound bites and buzz words such as "traditional family values," "for the good of our children," etc., to seek to justify the unjustifiable, and to seek to lend rationality to the irrational xenophobia that they display that is diametrically opposed to Jesus' teachings and very life!

One can not assume that just because someone calls him/herself a "Christian" that he/she is not a mere thug! And, what's worse, he/she is a thug who thinks that God is on his/her side when he/she actively contributes to the suffering, suicides, assaults, and murders of God's LGBT children!

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again: Every single drop of blood shed by LGBT people through suicide, assault, and murder is on the hands of every professing Christian who either advocates discrimination against LGBT people or who remains silent amidst the oppression of LGBT people!

As I wrote in an article entitled, Gay Bashing: The Politics of Religion:

"Make no mistake, every drop of blood shed by GLBT people either through suicide, bashing, or murder, are on the hands of all those religious leaders, their followers, and their allies who spew forth their ignorance, prejudice, and hate against GLBT people and their relationships! These wolves in sheep's clothing take the Bible, God's love letter to His children, and selectively and perversely use it as a club to condemn others, and deny GLBT people full inclusion in the Church and in society.

The tradition-bound parts of the Church have so indoctrinated people, many of whom have never even set foot in a house of worship, that many people even disown their own children when they "come out" and divulge their sexual orientation to those whom they thought unconditionally loved and cherished them. There are many children living on the streets because their own parents trusted ignorant clergy and their followers over their God-given duty and privilege to nurture and embrace their own children! (See here.)

In his excellent article, An Open Letter From Jesus to "Christian" America, Frank Schaeffer hits the nail on the head regarding the hypocrisy of all too many professing Christians' hateful animus toward one or more minority groups that they feel are "safe" and even "godly" to persecute.

Of course, the minority group de jour that so many professing Christians view as acceptable to oppress is comprised of LGBT people, and it's a crying shame that many people believe their lies borne out of ignorance and/or downright hate!

Here is an excerpt from the article by Frank Schaeffer [Pictured], an article that I strongly urge you to read in its entirety:

You American Christians utterly defaced the name of Christianity with your racism, your slavery and your bigotry against women. And now you're doing it again in your war against gay men and women and in your war against the poor who have no health care. Some of you even have had it as part of your wicked program to reestablish the Biblical law demanding death to gay people that I clearly showed must be broken by the greater law of love. Well, as you judge so you will be judged. Good luck with that!

Do you think the Kingdom of God is more likely to belong to, a wealthy "Christian" leader who preaches hate and exclusion (even when saying "I love everyone and only hate the sin") or to the least of these, the disenfranchised who want nothing more than to enjoy the same rights of other citizens? Do you think God does not see that the poor have no care and die because your greedy (lying) insurance lobby has your so called Congress in their pockets?

You hypocrites and liars! You say you're preaching my gospel when my gospel never was about correct belief or correct behavior. My gospel was about not judging others, making room for everyone at the table, loving your neighbor as you love yourself. If gay men and women are your enemy then, as you know, I commanded you to love them! And if they are asking to be allowed to marry I commanded you to give to him who asks of you! Besides, you don't own America. This is a democracy and yours is just one opinion.

[For the full article by Frank Schaeffer, see here.]

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4 comments:

DC HAMPTON JACOBS said...: A very provocative article, Jerry. It's well worth reading, but I think the premise of writing in Jesus Christ's name will backfire on Mr. Schaeffer. Not a good idea, in my opinion; our Savior spoke the truth as well as it could be spoken, and He needs no one to speak for Him.

As for ignoring the "dumb, harsh" parts of the Bible as he says, I beg to differ. Nobody needs to ignore anything. All anybody needs to do is read the Bible with common sense! Not everything in its pages is a rule meant for Christians to follow. The rules that Christians follow were laid down by just one individual, Jesus Christ.

It's the Gospels that we look to for Divine authority. Not the Levitican code; not the prophets; not even the letters of the Apostle Paul! As I've said before, all books of the Bible are NOT created equal! What's more, a Christian does not live on the Bible alone. A Christian must seek an interactive relationship with God; there's no substitute for doing that.

You can be thousands of miles away from a Bible and still be enriched by the Holy Spirit! God needs no vessel through which to reach your heart; when He wants to come into your life, He just comes! That's how Paul was converted.

I submit that Christianity doesn't require contact with any particular tome or talisman or preacher or church in order to be valid. What makes it valid is adherence to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. That, in a nutshell, is Mr. Schaeffer's core argument, and I agree with it 100%.; December 14, 2009 at 2:11 PM
Jerry Maneker said...: Beautifully put, Don Charles! "I submit that Christianity doesn't require contact with any particular tome or talisman or preacher or church in order to be valid. What makes it valid is adherence to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. That, in a nutshell, is Mr. Schaeffer's core argument, and I agree with it 100%." AMEN!!!! Best wishes, Jerry.; December 14, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Actually, America is not a democracy! It is a secular republic where rights of minorities are supposed to be protected by the framers' intelligent design.

EdM
"Fin des Voies Rapides (If Peak Oil Were No Object)
heet://ifpeakoilwerenoobject.blogspot.com/; January 14, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Jerry Maneker said...: Amen, Anonymous!!!!; January 14, 2010 at 10:44 AM

FROM "THE CHRISTIAN LEFT"

"It’s easy to see the sinfulness and corruption of “the world” for what they are when you spend enough time reading what Jesus said. It has nothing to do with abortion and gay marriage. It has everything to do with the lust for money, power and control. Starving the poor and depriving the sick of health care, not caring for the least of these among us, is what angers God the most. It’s easy to see why the road is narrow. The world is very efficient at convincing even Christians that its agenda is good. When people try to carry out God’s agenda they’re labeled “Socialists” and demonized."

MUST-READING FOR THOSE INVOLVED IN THE LGBT CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE

In most Native American history, Gay, Lesbian, and/or Transgendered individuals were considered holy and treated with the highest respect. They were the historians, the healers, and the people of empowerment. They possessed the delicate balance of male and female, and were often honored for being unique and having a different spiritual calling. For their tribes, they were the mediators between the spirit world and the natural world. They were known in their separate languages as “naadle” (nad le) They who love their own kind, translation from the Navajo language; “winkte” (wink-day) would be woman, translation from the Lakota Sioux language; and “bade” (bah-day) male/female person, translation from the Hidatsa language. (By the staff of the Two-Spirit Society of Denver.)

CIVIL RIGHTS ARE NOT TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ELECTORATE!

We can't spend our time and tremendous amounts of monies trying to get the majority of the electorate to vote for equal rights. If integration of African Americans was put on the ballot in each state during the civil rights era, we would still have segregation and Jim Crow laws! There must be meaningful, coordinated, and aggressive grassroots, street, and organizational activism, coupled with the filing of civil suits at the federal level, to achieve equal rights. "Separate is not equal," and that fact must be, and undoubtedly will be, affirmed by the Judiciary in regard to Gay people, as it was for African Americans, and not left to the will and whim of the majority of the electorate, for to do so demeans Gay people, and puts each and every minority group's rights up for grabs. We would never think of putting one or more civil rights of Jews, of African Americans, of Asians, etc. on the ballot to be voted upon, and Gay people's civil rights must not be treated any differently.

Christianity Is A Lifestyle

Christianity is a lifestyle -- a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a clever "religion," in order to avoid the lifestyle itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their "personal Lord and Savior." The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great. - Richard Rohr

THE BIBLE IS NOT GOD

The Bible is NOT God! To elevate the Bible to the status of God, not only is an injustice to scholarship and logic, but is a direct offense against God Himself. We are to have no idols other than God, and biblical literalists and many of those who seek to counter them, both use the Bible as an idol, elevating it to the point where they explicitly or implicitly believe that it contains all of God's Word to us. Jesus is God's Word, and Jesus makes very clear what God expects of His followers: to trust God over and above seen circumstances, and to love other people! That's what puts the lie to homophobic professing Christians' selective use of certain biblical passages to "justify" and impose their hateful prejudices on others; their re-defining Christianity, and God Himself, in their own image, thereby using not only the Bible, but themselves, as their idols; ignoring Jesus' words, work, ministry, and life! The Bible is best viewed as a "finger" that points us to a couple of the many dimensions of God. What the biblical literalists do is equivalent to the following: If I ask you where you live and you point in a given direction and I just keep staring at your finger, I'll soon come to know everything about your finger, its size, shape, fingerprint, and every single detail about your finger, but I won't come any closer to knowing where you live. I have to look to the place where your finger is pointing in order to know where you live. The same holds true for those who elevate the Bible as being the "inerrant word of God." No! Only God is the Inerrant Word!

LGBT PEOPLE AS "EUNUCHS SO BORN FROM THEIR MOTHER'S WOMB."

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb.... (Matthew 19:12)

I don't think any scholar who is truly spiritually sensitive can not see that "eunuchs so born from their mother's womb" refers to Gay and Transgender people who, on this earth, most closely reflect God Who is Spirit and Who transcends gender. LGBT people are God's gift to this world, and to His Church. Too many of the former largely reject that gift; Christ's Church, unfortunately, seems to comprise very few within the institutional Church.

THE CONFUSION OF "HEDONISM" WITH "GAY."

In my opinion, a distinction has to be made between "hedonism" and "Gay," and much public persona of Gay people, and the commentators on all too many LGBT-oriented sites, seem to be more hedonistic than Gay. Frivolity, indecency, and use of hateful epithets as self-identifiers tell us far more about them than it does about Gay people. They use "queer" because they feel "queer," and don't see being Gay in any other terms than being "indecent" and "abnormal." And many of them pride themselves on being outsiders! This reflects their psyches, and they are too dense to accept that fact, let alone change their rhetoric and self-perceptions. They resent anyone who tells them that they are not "mistakes," and that dignity is essential in living one's life, and they undoubtedly thrive on lack of such dignity. I learned a lot from a transgender woman, for example, when she resented the fact that I said that she wasn't a mistake! She tenaciously hung on to the fact that she is a mistake and resented any other possibility. The same is true for most Gay people who comment on assorted Gay-oriented sites. Blindly accepting the oppressor's rhetoric and actions has done inordinate harm to many LGBT people, and that's a great deal of what we must fight against.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AUGUST 4, 1857

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

A NOTE ON THE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE USE OF PEJORATIVE SELF-IDENTIFIERS

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISM, BY DON CHARLES

1. Thou shalt not address thyself or thy kind with inaccurate, disrespectful or dehumanizing labels, nor shalt thou do or say anything to marginalize thyself or enable thy own oppression.

2. Thou shalt not treat thy moral crusade like a political campaign. Thou shalt not value the welfare of political parties over the welfare of LGBT folk, nor shalt thou bind the equality movement to any political party.

3. Thou shalt not disrespect transgender identity or transgender bodies, and thou shalt not kick thy transsexual brethren to the curb for political advantage. Thou shalt endeavor to rid thy movement of transphobia as well as biphobia, sexism, heterosexism, racism, sexual racism, ageism and class bias.

4. Thou shalt not defend, attend or fund any religious institution which preaches genocide against LGBT folk, and thou shalt pursue separation of church and state with all thy mind, heart and soul. Thou shalt directly confront religious institutions that preach LGBT genocide, and thou shalt use authentic, inclusive theology as a weapon against hateful doctrine.

5. Thou shalt not use the equality movement as thy vehicle for exhibitionism, hedonism, political ambition or self-promotion.

6. Thou shalt not excuse any form of inequality (such as exclusion from marriage or military service) on ideological grounds, and thou shalt not give LGBT equality less importance than other social issues.

7. Thou shalt vigilantly police media representations of LGBT folk for demeaning, ridiculous and vilifying portrayals, and thou shalt not fail to include Gay media in thy policings.

8. Thou shalt preach the gospel of comprehensive sex education. Thou shalt promote intelligent conversation about human sexuality, express thy own sexuality without shame, be considerate of thy sexual partners, and shun sex practices that are unhealthy, irresponsible or illegal.

9. Thou shalt access public and private education systems and use those systems to diminish fear and ignorance about LGBT people. Thou shalt not be turned aside from this goal by scurrilous accusations of "recruitment".

10. Thou shalt protect, nurture and serve as role models for LGBT youth, and thou shalt protect, honor and provide for LGBT elders.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE: AN OPEN LETTER FROM JESUS TO 'CHRISTIAN' AMERICA, BY FRANK SCHAEFFER

4 comments:

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