Same gender attraction and Christianity.
It’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?
A big, complex, multi-faceted and often scary deal.
Current conventional wisdom (at least in a few of the circles I’ve been reading) recommends breaking down a big, menacing deal into a number of smaller, more manageable deals (I’m paraphrasing a whole lot here, and clearly not citing any sources), so here’s what I suggest is an attainable Step 1. Maybe not even 1, maybe it’s Step 0.5. And it’s as simple as breathing.
In fact, it is breathing.
So we hear about another legislation about gay marriage, or someone confesses a friend’s (or their own) struggle with sexual identity...
And one of our gut reactions… is to wince.
And we’re not talking about just a facial expression: I see it played out in an extreme, instantaneous facial expression, and the very next breath we take in is audible, and shrill, and quite honestly, often heartbreaking.
Why we wince is a whole big, complex, multi-faceted deal within the big, complex, multi-faceted deal we’re already dealing with, having a lot to do with engrained learning so many of us grew up with (and many still grow up with) in our churches.
I wonder: what if we slow down that first breath?
I used to read about a 10-second rule, that if you’re inclined to respond with full frontal rage, to count to 10 before reacting harshly. Maybe this kind of thing has fallen out of favour, maybe it didn’t really work (was 10 not enough, maybe?...), but I do think that slowing down is, at times, the beginning of wisdom. As is taking a deep, intentional, life-giving breath: connecting a few dots here, I was reminded in a PodCast from The Meeting House that the Greek word pneuma (pronounced NOOMA… yes, that Nooma) describes both 'wind' or 'breath'… and the Holy Spirit.
I honestly don’t know how much we can, or should, control that automatic reaction but I see some pluses in a world where the church is seen less as the people who freak out about morals, more as the people who embrace, love & accept people with differences, like Jesus did, because we draw on the resources that He did (or rather, breathe in THE Resource).
New Direction is taking a stand in a battle that could very well define us as a church. They do so with tons of grace and wisdom, as I witnessed from taking their Sexual Identity & The Local Church seminar. It’s an important part of the even bigger, complexer, multi-faceteder and often scarier deal of our collective identity as Christ’s followers. I believe that if wince less and “breathe the right stuff” with more intentionality in these instances, it will help us take good, proper breaths in all instances.
Please check out the other blogs (I really liked Beth’s) at:
www.btgproject.blogspot.com
