Another disturbing statistic is that, of the 537 largest churches they found info about, only 90 have been scored as affirming. Now, people may claim that they don’t represent “true” Christianity, and/or that their own particular religious institution affirms LGBT issues to a great degree. This is fine and dandy…but is it enough? Take another look at the stats and the quotes from established religious leaders-is the fact that your own hands are clean supposed to be reassuring?
I’m thinking maybe not.
The article lists the 100 largest churches, not the 100 largest denominations. It’s no surprise that mega-churches, which are primarily fundamentalist, don’t affirm LGBT. Meanwhile, dozens of Christian denominations affirm LGBT rights, including
United Methodist (14,000,000 members)
Presbytarian (5, 600,000)
the Episcopal Church (3,450,000 members)
the Church of Christ (2,500,000)
Society of Friends (Quaker) (213,000)
Some denominations leave it up to individual churches, and some, like the Roman Catholic Church, ban it entirely. Yet even in the Roman Catholic Church,67% of Catholics believe gays should have the right to marry. The times, they are a-changin’.
There are 35 million Baptists in the US, and 15.5 million of them are Southern Baptists. So the numbers for LGBT tolerant churches are not very reassuring.
So what exactly are you getting at? Yes, most Christians in the US are not pro-LGBT. This is indeed a bad thing. I am one of many Christians who are trying to change this.
Is the argument that I should feel bad because of what these other people do? Why should I? Other Arkansans voted for Trump–that doesn’t make feel bad about myself. I do not control them.
Is there an assumption that we are all silent? Because I most certainly am not. Not only is my status as an LGBT ally plain to see, but I’ve been arguing that the Bible doesn’t actually condemn homosexuality about as long as I’ve know there could be one. I’ve been pro-trans pretty much all my life, since the Bible just does not cover anything about what makes a man a man or a woman a woman.
If I did not fight this, I would consider myself guilty. For those of us who know, it is a sin to keep silent and not try and fix this. Many LGBT people are (possibly) going to hell not because they rejected God, but because they believe he has rejected them. That is horrible, and it has always been horrible when it has been against other people.
I am a Christian because I believe in God and Jesus and all that. Not because I agree with the most popular theology. The idea of feeling guilty because other people do wrong makes no sense at all to me.
Many of those Catholics believe that civil SSM should be available but are less sure of whether canonic SSM should be, at least in countries where people are conscious of the difference between the two legal systems. Bonus points for those who also know of the existence of natural marriage.
I am a Christian and I support the LBGTQ folks. I work towards love and acceptance, for my congregation and for all Christians. I know several congregations that, while they have not adopted an explicit statement of support for LGBTQ, they in practice do welcome and embrace them.
The times, they are a-changin’.
The congregations I know of that do not explicitly support LGBTQs have a significant part of their members in their 80s and 90s, and it’s these ‘old school’ members who balk at explicit support statements. I guess it is hard to teach an old dog a new trick. But in practice the congregations do support, but without a blatant, in-your-face statement that the old dogs may (may) find distasteful.
As the congregation turns over (okay, as the old folk pass on), their representation diminishes and I expect those congregations to adopt the explicit support statements.
We are heading in the right direction, and we’re trying to do it with love and respect for all.
So what if your particular church “makes a statement”. In this war against LGBT rights that these megachurches are waging that is the barest minimum. “Blatant in-your-face statements” are what is needed at this point, because waiting for the old guard to die out before daring to do more is a slap in the face to those you write statements about. If you want to hide behind mere statements, know that Serena Williams didn’t get to where she is today by bringing a badminton racquet to Wimbledon.
I would suggest boycotting those churches. Let me state right here and now that I will not support any Church that doesn’t recognize LGBT rights. Anyone else with me?
Note that they aren’t evenly distributed around the country. If you make a list of the states that the majority of them are located in, what is the average attitude toward LGBTs in those states? Is the average attitude toward them in those states any different from the average attitude toward them in the megachurches in those states? Is it possible that the attitudes in those megachurches reflects the average attitudes in those states rather than the average attitude of Christians in the U.S.?
I think this question of “guilt by association” is not clear cut, there’s a spectrum.
Clearly it’s wrong to suggest that homophobia is a “core value” of all Christianity, any more than it has been a core value of any other religion or indeed the entire human race until fairly recently. It would be pretty ignorant to condemn someone for their professed general Christianity just because some Christians are bigoted assholes.
But take an extreme case. Suppose a neo-Nazi KKK-er says: “But I’m not a racist, and many of us are not. I love the KKK for its sense of community and family values, and I’m fighting the racism that do I see in some members of that community.” Clearly that’s idiotic. Racism is a core value of the KKK, and if you’re a civilized human being you are not a member. Just being a member is grounds for condemnation, there is no room for claiming to be a non-racist moderate KKK member. If you’re not a racist, and you want a sense of community without the racism, you obviously must form some new group and call it something else.
And between these extremes there is no clear cutoff, there is a spectrum. In the post-Trump world, it has reached a point where some people now feel that Republicanism is so tarnished that no civilized human being could possibly claim to be a Republican. That’s ridiculous, of course.
But are there are some Christian churches/groups/sects/denominations that are over that line? I would at least be deeply suspicious of anyone who claimed to be a fundamentalist Christian. I think you can making an argument that homophobia is a core value of some Christian denominations to a point that if you’re a civilized person perhaps you should leave and find another church.
