Why people leave religion, and why we should listen to them

It’s not a new study, but the Pew Research Center recently re-posted on Twitter a 2016 survey of people who identified themselves as religious “nones” — people who didn’t identify with a particular religious group.

According to a 2015 study cited in the article, around 23 percent of the U.S. population identified themselves that way. Seventy-eight percent of that group said they were raised in a religious group before quitting it as an adult. 

Looking at the numbers, some of it is understandable. Forty-nine percent said they left because they didn’t believe anymore, 20 percent said they didn’t like organized religion and 18 percent said they were “religiously unsure/undecided.” The numbers were broken down even further, and it’s those items, as well as some of the open-ended answers, that I wanted to look at in this post.

Focus on power/politics: Four percent of those surveyed said they left their childhood faith because they felt “religion focuses on power/politics.” The open-ended answers included things like “I think religion is not a religion anymore. It’s a business…it’s all about money.” Another said that they “see organized religious groups as more divisive than uniting.” Yet another cited “too many Christians doing un-Christian things.”

Rational thought: There’s no number for how many think religion excludes reason and rational thought, but one of the open-ended answers was this: “Rational thought makes religion go out the window.” Seven percent of responders said their “views (on religion) evolved,” and 1 percent stated they “went through a crisis of faith,” which could come from examining rational thought in light of religion.

No time: This statistic stood out to me — 2 percent of responders said they were “too busy” for religion, and that’s why they left. One stated simply, “I don’t have the time to go to church.” Seven percent of those surveyed said they were “not interested in/don’t need religion.”

Organized religion: Twenty percent of those surveyed said they left because they “dislike organized religion,” with 15 percent saying they considered themselves “anti-institutional religion.” One person said they “no longer believe in organized religion…I just believe that religion is very personal conversation with me and my creator.” Another person, who actually didn’t fall into this category, stated that they believed in a higher power, “but I don’t need a church to do that.”

I know the whole survey wasn’t about former Christians, but you’ve got to imagine that the majority would fit that category. And the reality is that I think faith in Jesus can answer all those questions and provide guidance — and I’ll get there later. But first, we need to think about what we as the institution of Christianity might have done to put people in that position in the first place.

As far as it depends on us

Something that Paul says in Romans has stuck with me since I read it is a simple instruction he gives to his audience with ramifications for us. And while it’s simply put, how it’s put into action seems to be quite difficult. Romans 12:16-18 states:

“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

If we can be honest, the human institution of Christianity has not always done a good job of doing these things. While many Christians and many churches are good, committed and peaceful citizens of their communities, contributing in positive and powerful ways, there are some that take a different approach.

As reported in multiple media outlets, Pastor Hope Carpenter was speaking recently at a church in South Carolina where the pastors, John and Aventer Gray, have come under fire from the Greenville News newspaper for their extravagant spending. Carpenter loudly proclaimed that she was “rooting for” the Grays. Then, almost out of nowhere, the tone shifted.

“I cut people,” she says. “I’ve got a knife right in that pocketbook. Greenville News, come on.”

Shiver.

Not only is that a threat of violence on a free press — which as a journalist bothers me — it’s a self-proclaimed Christian promising violence against people. I don’t know the whole story of the Grays and the newspaper. It’s very possible that the newspaper has been unfair in its coverage or is cherry-picking facts or is making a story out of something that shouldn’t be. But this type of action is certainly not following Paul’s wisdom as shared to the Romans.

I know this is one example, and I’m sure that the Grays, Hope Carpenter and that church in South Carolina have done many, many good things for people, and have represented Christ well at other times. The Grays immediately distanced themselves from the statements, but through a publicist.

But when that’s the image of Christianity that people see, can you blame some for leaving the faith, saying organized religion in general is “more divisive than uniting,” and that “more harm has been done in the name of religion than any other area”?

It’s easy for me to cherry-pick Hope Carpenter’s comments, but let’s be real: this isn’t the first time something like that has happened in the same breath as the name of our Savior being said. 

Again, this is not about blaming the human institution of Christianity as a whole, or saying that people should just not be part of a church because of one pastor going crazy one time. But it’s high time we think critically about our role as Christians in how our faith and our religion is perceived. 

Paul’s wisdom to the Romans, principles that would be well-taken by us, is to do whatever we can to live peaceably with all. To live in harmony with one another. To “give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” That’s a very practical and helpful piece of advice. 

What have we done — not just one crazy lady, but all of us — that could possibly be putting people off from our faith? What is our responsibility? Some will leave simply because they don’t believe, and that’s fine, there’s not much we can do about that. In fact, 49 percent of those surveyed said they left because they didn’t believe anymore. 

But what about those who gave other reasons?

Meeting people where they are

Another great bit of wisdom from Paul that showed itself in his own ministry is found in 1 Corinthians 9. He writes:

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them…I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings” (v. 19, 22-23).

Paul stretched himself to try to understand and relate to his audience for the purpose of salvation, for the purpose of the good news of Jesus. We must must must do the same. We must not be afraid to engage people where they are. We must be willing to accept our own flaws and admit them and try to do better.

In that interest, I think there are good answers to those who have left religion, Christianity in particular, for the reasons listed in that survey. I don’t think the true Christianity, the true faith that saves our lives, excludes them. For example:

Focus on power/politics: The real Jesus didn’t focus on either of those things. Jesus’ life and commands were simple: love God and love your neighbor. In those two commandments, He said, is all the law and the prophets. Being a Christian, a Christ-follower, is not about accumulating earthly power or political influence. It’s about loving God and loving your neighbor. 

Rational thought: Paul’s life and writings were full of rational thought. He is more or less the father of intellectual theology. The book of Romans breaks down theology in an intellectual sense, capturing spiritual realities in a human vocabulary. Yes, being a Christian means there is faith in a higher power and supernatural entities. But there is space and room for rational thought.

No time: Being a Christian doesn’t mean you need to be at church from 10 a.m. to noon every Sunday. Those things can be helpful, yes, and there is certainly a need for time with other believers having conversations and being encouraged and challenged in the things of God. But there is time, I promise, to be a Christian, to trust in Jesus. It takes some time, effort and patience to get to that point where it becomes part of you, but it’s worth it.

Organized religion: Jesus didn’t like organized religion either. He spent more time criticizing the organized religion of His day than anything else. He flipped tables and cracked whips in the presence of the organized religion. When Christians organize in churches, we try to provide a human framework and structure to make it easier to access the things we believe we need. But because they are human institutions, they will fail and they will have flaws. We ask that you give us some patience and grace as we figure out how to improve.

Of course those are not in-depth examinations of those topics, but it’s crucial, I think, that we be willing to reach out to people where they are and try to meet their needs on their terms. Of course we shouldn’t compromise what’s really important, what’s really truth to meet their needs, but we don’t need to be so hardline on non-salvation theologies that it cuts off any good conversation or pushes away people unnecessarily.

Being like Jesus is usually a good start

I want to go back to something I said a little bit ago: Jesus was more critical of the religious institutions than those who didn’t belong to them. 

That seems backwards to most church experiences I’ve had. How often has a pastor said something to the effect of “the world has this wrong, don’t they? Haven’t you seen it?” Or “there are some who think God is this or that, and they’re missing the point”? Or “America has gone to hell in a hand basket and we all need Jesus”?

While their point may be well-backed up by facts and ultimately true, that type of attitude engenders an environment where world-bashing is easy and analyzing the human institution of Christianity for flaws becomes difficult. After all, we’ll say, the world does this and that. 

What did Jesus do? He ate and broke bread with the world, He took the world’s children in His arms, He so loved the world that He came to give it the best news it could ever get. He didn’t do those things only for the religious institutions of the day, but for all. 

If we really want people to stay in the human institution of Christianity, we need to be there alongside them as they consider leaving. It doesn’t need to be on this and that condition, it doesn’t need to be with a correcting tone unless Jesus or someone is being misrepresented. It needs to be with “What can I do for you? What questions can I answer? What conversations can I have? How can I love you?” 

Love needn’t be trumped by “right theology.” After all, God is love.

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‘You’re Not Crazy’: Letter to Me Five Years Ago

Author’s Note: Five years ago, I went through a prolonged season of doubt in God and His existence and me being saved. It was one of the most stressful years of my life. Yeah, it was all of 2014. At the same time, I was finishing up college, sort of dating the girl who would later become my wife (after a few complications) and trying to figure out what was next in my career.

One of my favorite things I’ve ever found on social media is an image of a guy giving a talk with a phrase projected on a screen behind him: “Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger.” This is me trying to be that guy. 

Hey Zach,

Let’s slow down for a minute. I know you’ve got a lot in your head. It’s racing. 

Later this year, you’ll figure out exactly what that is. It’s pretty serious anxiety and depression. You don’t quite know what those terms mean, and frankly, you probably think Christians don’t deal with that stuff. If I’m a Christian, you’re thinking, why do I feel this terrible?

I want to stress something to you: you’re wrong, but in the best possible way.

You’re trying to make sense of what’s going on in your head. And I’m going to go ahead and warn you: you’re going to be experiencing this for at least the next five years. Today, as I’m writing this letter to you, I’m feeling what you’re feeling now. Confusion, frustration, wondering why in the world God is letting you deal with all the crap inside your head.

Depression and anxiety is not abnormal to Christians. It’s part of life for a lot of people, even the clinically-diagnosed depression and anxiety that you’ll find out more about later this year.

I’m not going to tell you how to change your circumstances because 1) that’s cheating in this time-travel scenario. And 2) if you don’t go through what you’re about to go through, you wouldn’t be writing this letter to yourself. Don’t think about that part too much, you’ll hurt your brain. Just wait for Avengers: Endgame.

So take a deep breath, a few of them, and read on. I want to share three things with you.

Being a Christian doesn’t make you exempt from depression and anxiety, and that’s not sinful.

You may have heard a few times, and you’ll read it a few times in the coming years, that anxiety and depression is simply the result of “not trusting God enough” or “not praying enough,” that one day it will just end. 

Maybe one day it will just end, but I want you to know that depression and anxiety are real, psychological afflictions that millions of people around the world have. It doesn’t disqualify you from being a Christian, and it doesn’t disqualify you from serving in the Church. I know you’re going to tell yourself that. 

But in a couple years, you’ll be growing and learning about your mental health, and reaching out to others who are dealing with the same thing. You’ll be sharing the love of Jesus with them, writing about it and making a difference in your small area. Don’t quit.

You’re going to go through some changes in your thinking, and it’s going to affect your mental health.

If I could do anything for you, it would be to warn you about what’s going to happen to your thinking, particularly about God and the Bible. It’s going to change. You’re not going to stop believing, although right now it feels like that’s a real possibility. 

You know God is real. How would all this get here without Him? His intricate design is too creative to be random chance. Remember in that psychology class your freshman year? Seeing those two bugs fight it out? You hate bugs, but you found the way the bigger bug devoured that littler bug so fascinating. Don’t lose that fascination. 

Anyway, these alterations and challenges are going to shape you for the better. It’s going to affect your politics, your faith, the words you speak, the thoughts you think. And it’s going to make you anxious and depressed at times. 

In those times, trust that God is there, that He is doing a work in you that will make you more like that bigger bug: able to handle whatever comes your way, as long as you keep His promises in your mind.

Don’t quit.

Don’t run. You’re not crazy.

You’re going to quit a few things in between now and then. You’re going to get scared: of relationships, of jobs, of faith. 

Don’t run away from them. It’s all in your head. It’s the result of your anxiety. You’ve got this thing called pure O, the obsessive part of OCD. You get a thought in your head and then you obsess over it. 

You’re going to start taking medicine for it real soon, and that will be very helpful. But it won’t take it all away, it’s not supposed to. In the times where you start freaking out about what you’re committing yourself to, remember that whatever happens, God loves you and everything will be OK. It might not be good, but it will be OK.

Don’t quit.

Really, that’s what I want to leave you with. Don’t quit. Quitting is so easy for you to do. You’ve done it since you were a little kid. 

In a few months, your mom will tell you that when you were little, you would start building towers with blocks. After the first time they fell — probably because your brother took all the LEGO-building skill that came from your grandpa’s engineering background — you quit. You didn’t try anymore. You’ve done that with countless board games, card games, books, screenplays, videos and more. 

Sometimes you will need to have quit those things. But not this time. Not this life. Don’t quit. Jesus really does love you, even if you don’t believe it right now.

Now, I want you to throw this letter away. Again, I’m not here to mess with your life path. It’s going to stay pretty much the same. I just want you to hear what I wish you had heard during that whole year of 2014 when you didn’t believe.

Don’t quit.

Zach

Speaking My Language: A Reflection on Rachel Held Evans

I’m not the least qualified person to write about Rachel Held Evans and what she meant to me. After all, I’ve read two of her books and followed her on Twitter for two long stretches.

But I can’t help but put words on a page about her work and her life and what it meant to me.

For those you who don’t know, Evans died last week of brain swelling. It was a shock to a lot of people. Only 37, and with two young children, her passing was heart-breaking not only because of her youth and motherhood responsibilities, but her love, care, concern and, of least importance, writing talent.

After hearing of her passing on Saturday, I re-read Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church over the last few days, finishing Tuesday afternoon. As a writer myself, I love her style of mixing emotional self-reflection with life story, biblical application with textual criticism. She was both humorous and intellectual, realistic and self-deprecating. I want to write like her, to turn phrases with emotional impact and spiritual depth while pointedly approaching problems she sees. She wrote with compassion, understanding the reality of life as a Christian and a human, not taking any crap while seeing people’s flaws and elevating them.

She spoke my language.

Most of us have a writer or musician with whom we relate. They’ve got a book or a song or a few songs that, when we hear them, we think, “That’s us.” I have a few music artists that have a smattering of songs that I love listening to because they feel like me — Ed Sheeran, two Australian artists recently recommended to me by a friend named Jacob Lee and Dean Lewis, and a few more. And when I was in high school, Relient K was me. Still are to some degree.

But I’ve only found two authors with whom I have that connection: Brennan Manning and Rachel Held Evans.

Not only did Evans challenge me as a writer, she challenged me to think critically about my faith. So many of us who grow up in the church environment have one of two outcomes: growing up and leaving the faith because we never made it our own, or growing up and keeping the exact same faith of our parents, never to be flexible because we didn’t learn how to be.

When I first read Searching for Sunday, I was in the midst of a bit of a sea-change in my walk with Jesus. I had more or less made my faith my own, but was struggling to find people with whom I could connect, who were thinking the same things I was thinking. I read Searching for Sunday and found a connection.

The book follows Evans’ church journey: growing up as a Bible drill nerd, asking deep theological questions at Easter lunch and going to college. In that journey, she discovers some things about the faith structure she grew up in that didn’t jive with the Jesus she knew and loved. Writing about the missionary Phillip’s conversation with the Ethiopian eunuch, Evans said:

“…we religious types are really good at building walls and retreating to temples. We’re good at making mountains out of our ideologies, obstructions out of our theologies, and hills out of our screwed-up notions of who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy and who’s unworthy. We’re good at getting in the way.” (39)

It got so bad that she just dumped church. She didn’t want to be part of the evangelical church structure because it stressed her out, made her made, made her sad. So she left.

I don’t blame her. There are a lot of things about the evangelical church industry that stress me out and make me mad and sad. There are things that, to me at least, don’t seem reflective of Jesus and who He is.

Rachel Held Evans wrote that and lived it. She spoke out about the church’s often-painful treatment of LGBTQ individuals, its regular allegiance to unnecessary and sometimes harmful politics and our consistent and general inability to just love people as they are. She found the places within the church community that were doing that and praised them, encouraged them.

The thing that’s amazed me the most in the last few days is how many Christian authors and speakers from varying points on the evangelical spectrum have written or Tweeted about Evans. RELEVANT Magazine compiled a good list here. Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker, Peter Enns, Ed Stetzer and Russell Moore are among those who have posted brief or lengthy reflections on her life.

It’s a testimony to a person who might have had theological differences with some, but found common ground as much as possible. A person who stood for the least of these and the weakest because Jesus loved them most. A person who wasn’t afraid to speak truth about power because that’s what Jesus did. A person who just wanted Christians to be like Christ.

The other book of her’s that I read was Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. It’s about the Bible, how she found a lot of things in the teaching she grew up with that didn’t match with the Bible she read. Like Searching for Sunday, it’s about reconsidering what you’ve grown up with, asking honest questions and finding answers that match what you see.

That’s the life I hope to live: open to being wrong, open to growing and open to what God has for me.

I write like I knew her intimately, but I never met her or talked to her in any format. But she wrote so honestly and plainly and openly. I want to be like that.

I want to speak that language.

BARS at the Movies: ‘Heroin(e)’

Photo courtesy of Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Psychologists, doctors and more have spent years and years studying addiction: the condition where someone can’t live without something so much that it drives them over the edge sometimes.

Of course, that’s a rough, brief, basic definition of addiction. It’s much more complex, and takes different forms. But one of the most common in America right now is addiction to opioids.

I just watched the Netflix documentary “Heroin(e),” which follows three people regularly doing life-saving work in the small town of Huntington, West Virginia.

In Huntington, the drug overdose rate is 10 times the national average and at least five people every day overdose and are treated by first responders. The film, which runs around 40 minutes, follows Fire Chief Jan Rader, county judge Patricia Keller, who runs the drug court, and Necia Freeman of Brown Bag Ministry, which delivers food to women who turn to prostitution to support their addictions. They are the title “heroines.”

I won’t do a deep dive into the documentary and the filmmaking itself, but want to cover a couple takeaways I had and what it means for Christians.

People Who Save

There are a lot of people at a lot of nonprofits and organizations and churches across the country that help others, selflessly and sacrificially. And all of them deserve recognition for their work. But “Heroin(e)” stands out because of its heroes.

Rader, who in the course of the film becomes Huntington’s first female fire chief, is not a desk jockey chief. She routinely goes out on overdose calls, even once interrupting a television interview because, as becomes routine, there’s an overdose to go to. She helps apply naloxone, a drug designed to help people recover quickly from overdoses, and develops close relationships with addicts who are progressing and growing in sobriety.

Keller’s drug court is an opportunity for addicts who are caught with illegal substances to have a different interaction with the judicial system. One former addict who graduates from the program says Keller is the first “public official” he’s ever befriended, something he never expected. She’s tough, not taking crap from anyone and even sending people to jail for short times if the situation calls for it. But she displays a compassion for those she’s overseeing that’s refreshing and Christ-like.

Freeman is a Christian whose ministry includes handing out gospel tracts to prostitutes. She does the work that Jesus did. The film shows Freeman interacting with the lowest in society and offering more than just spiritual things: food, hygiene products, assistance in finding recovery options for these women. She’s not judgmental or over-spiritual: she’s a helping hand who loves people enough to go to the shady parts of Huntington and be a friend.

They’re people who save lives. It’s in different ways, but they’re people who have seen a problem and are doing something about it. Them being the focus of the documentary was a crucial part of its development, according to director Elaine McMillion Sheldon.

“Heroin(e) examines an epidemic that many communities are struggling with, so for this topic to have captured the attention of the Academy means so much to us, as filmmakers, and to those on the front lines,” Sheldon told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph after the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short. As native West Virginians living in the midst of this public health crisis, we believe the stories of these three tenacious and resilient women are what this country needs — a message of hope and survival to show us a way forward.”

The Addictiveness of Addiction

About midway through the film, Freeman is speaking about one of the people she helped, a girl named Hope. Freeman said she asked Hope why people get hooked on heroin.

“She said, ‘The only way I know to explain it to you is that getting high on heroin is what it would be like for you to kiss Jesus.’ She said, ‘That’s how powerful it is.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that’s probably pretty daggone powerful.'”

It was a powerful analogy. For a Christian, that could ring strong.

I’ve been working on a series for the newspaper where I work about opioids and opioid addiction, so this topic is fresh on my mind.

Opioid addiction starts when someone begins taking opioids, usually prescription pain killers, to deal with pain from surgery or an injury or even cancer. When the pills are taken, the brain begins creating receptors, which take in the opioids. It creates pain relief, which is what they’re supposed to be doing, and sometimes a sense of euphoria.

However, the receptors created are like hungry dogs. One treat isn’t enough. So even when the pain is healed, the opioids have created an addiction inside the brain that needs to be filled, and the withdrawal is horrendous. So people will do whatever it takes to find something to fill that gap. If they can’t get prescription pills, they just might turn to heroin, which is stronger (three times stronger than morphine) and more deadly.

It becomes a neurological change that needs treatment and sobriety to fix. And “Heroin(e)” captures that well: showing interviews with some recovering addicts who speak about how bad their situation was, that they would overdose or turn to prostitution to feed their addiction.

We Need These Films

One thing we can learn about the life of Jesus is that He was not ignorant of people’s issues. Whether it was poverty, sickness, adultery, premarital cohabitation, theology, government policy, church giving, He knew what was happening and offered a lending hand.

Christians watching “Heroin(e)” may or may not resonate with Freeman. Her faith being a central part of her ministry is admirable and it’s what we as Christians should aspire to. But she doesn’t go around sharing the gospel with everybody the first time, or trying to convince them to leave prostitution. It’s about handing out food and hygiene supplies, asking how people are doing, helping them to recovery clinics and homeless shelters. She’s an embodiment of what Jesus was.

I strongly recommend this documentary for a couple reasons: 1) to learn more about how the opioid epidemic can affect one town and 2) to see what real heroism, real Christ-driven heroism, looks like.

Judge Keller and Fire Chief Rader are admirable people as well. They may not profess Christ in their work — they may be Christians, I don’t know — but their attitudes and actions should be appreciated and reflected as well.

We the church need to be aware of this addiction, this issue, so we can be a place for help and aid. And I think “Heroin(e)” is a good place to start.

Justin Bieber’s ‘What Do You Mean,’ in GIFs from ‘The Office’

I had some time on my hands today, and I was listening to this song and texting my brother some lyrics with Office GIFs.

Enjoy.

---

What do you mean? Oh, oh
When you nod your head yes, but you wanna say no

What do you mean? Hey-ey
When you don’t want me to move, but you tell me to go

What do you mean?
Oh, what do you mean?

Said you’re running outta time, what do you mean?
Oh, oh, oh, what do you mean?
Better make up your mind, what do you mean?

You’re so indecisive, what I’m saying
Tryna catch the beat, make up your heart

Don’t know if you’re happy or complaining
Don’t want for us to end, where do I start?

First you wanna go to the left then you wanna turn right

Wanna argue all day, make love all night

You’re overprotective when I’m leaving
Tryna compromise but I can’t win

First you’re up, then you’re down and then between
Oh, I really wanna know…

You wanna make a point, but you keep preaching
You had me from the start, won’t let this end

First you wanna go to the left then you wanna turn right

Wanna argue all day, make love all night

First you’re up, then you’re down and then between
Oh, I really wanna know…

What do you mean? Oh, oh
When you nod your head yes, but you wanna say no

What do you mean? Hey-ey
When you don’t want me to move, but you tell me to go

What do you mean? (I wanna know)
Oh, what do you mean? (Ooh)
Said you’re running outta time, what do you mean? (Oh baby)

Oh, oh, oh, what do you mean?
Better make up your mind, what do you mean?

Oh, oh
(Don’t be so selfish baby, yeah)

When you nod your head yes
But you wanna say no

What do you mean? Hey-ey
(You’re so confusing baby)

When you don’t want me to move
But you tell me to go
What do you mean?

(Be more straight forward)

Oh, what do you mean?
Said you’re running outta time, what do you mean?
Oh, oh, oh, what do you mean?

Better make up your mind, what do you mean?

A New Personal Project…and I Need Your Help

I don’t do this very often, but this is a special circumstance.

I’m working on a new personal project. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a book or a series of blog posts or a podcast…maybe even a documentary, who knows. But I’m surveying people.

It’s not a scientific survey, it’s more on the anecdotal side. There are a couple yes or no questions, but mainly, it’s about hearing about experiences and thoughts about growing up in church. Here’s what I wrote on Google Forms:

“Hello! I’m working on a personal project about being in high school and being a Christian. As part of the project, I want to get some input from teenagers and former teenagers about their experiences as Christians in high school. This won’t be a scientific survey, but simply one getting some other stories and input.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The results of this survey will be used in one way or another for a future public project. I haven’t decided exactly what that will look like. You can remain anonymous if you wish, or you can give your name, or initials, so on.

This survey will ask questions about how your church/youth group approached topics like sex & relationships, social media, media consumption, politics & government and more, as well as what you learned about them from your time in church as a teenager. The idea is to get a picture of what these groups are teaching about these topics ‘from a Christian worldview.’

It’s a decently lengthy survey, so give yourself some time if you’re willing to answer. Don’t worry about writing too much. The more, the better.

I’d prefer to hear from people who are 13-29, current teens and people who were teenagers in the ‘social media age,’ as it were, who grew up in church or became a Christian during their high school years. If you have any questions, let me know — zacharyhornereu@gmail.com.”

Please, please, please fill this out if you qualify! I’ll give you a hug…digital or otherwise. You can find the link here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxu9dbFKuF7ObEncTmBGPV6mt9hVd4MdDy3mvnfQtdfQdX6w/viewform?fbclid=IwAR0bhdGLWxcWKSE24pMdp9c2kSrZkRyGhh4vI4TH1zgN9WJF8BFPRJ1LMVQ.

Thanks!

“Demon in a Bottle”: Tony Stark and Finding a New Route

I recently read my first full comic book arc: “Demon in a Bottle,” an Iron Man series of stories from from 1979.

First of all, I love the medium of comic books. I don’t know if I can exactly articulate why right now, but I just like them. Secondly, I loved the backbone of the story.

Tony Stark/Iron Man is in the midst of a ton of crap. His personal life is a shambles and the government is trying to take over his company Stark International. As he swigs some booze and ponders his troubles, the plane he’s in is cut in half by a flying tank.

Natural, right? Only in a comic book, and a 2000s-era Die Hard movie. I’m looking at you, Live Free or Die Hard.

I won’t dive too much into the story arc because it’s really worth a read, and I don’t want to spoil it. If you like the Avengers movies, you’ll like this because heroes like James Rhodes (aka War Machine), Scott Lang as Ant-Man and Captain America play significant supporting roles, and the villain Justin Hammer, seen in Iron Man 2, is also involved.

But what Stark deals with, and the arc’s author and illustrator intentionally explored, is the crux of the story, and worth our examination.

Multiple times, struck by his troubles and out of options, Stark turns to the bottle as his only salvation. He feels that he has no other choice, that pursuing drink is what will calm his nerves and help him face what’s ahead of him.

But in reality, it falls short. There’s a couple times where he has a little bit to drink and then dons the Iron Man suit, leading to predictable negative consequences. It causes more problems than it solves. It takes a while for him to realize that, but once he does, that’s when he changes.

How often in our lives do we look to things to soothe the pain? 

We’re no different than Tony Stark. We may not get drunk or harm people due to our addictions, but we’re really no different. Maybe we get a pint of ice cream and stuff it down to distract us. Maybe we look to sex to relax us and help us calm down. Maybe we seek attention and popularity to encourage us and boost our ego a bit.

None of those things — food, sex, attention — are bad in and of themselves. In fact, they can be used to help us rest and relax, recuperate and encourage us. Sometimes it’s nice to just get an ice cold cup of water to get us level. Sometimes spending time with our spouse in an intimate way can re-center us. And sometimes hanging out with friends can give us the love and encouragement we’ve been seeking.

It’s ultimately how we use those things that’s the issue. The things themselves are not to blame.

Tony’s butler Jarvis (the inspiration for the J.A.R.V.I.S. AI in the movies) and girlfriend Bethany Cabe try to drive home the point that he has to fix whatever else is going on, handle the problems that have come his way in his business and his personal life. It starts with handling his addiction to alcohol. It’s an arduous process in the comic. He shakes, shudders, experiences withdrawal symptoms. 

But what’s most crucial, and what Bethany encourages Tony to do, is facing your issues head-on. Talk through what’s going on. Express yourself, be vulnerable. 

If you’ve seen the Iron Man movies, they create a pretty accurate depiction of Tony Stark in this comic arc. He’s arrogant, self-centered and a playboy, while still retaining a sense of fighting for the good and justice. But he’s not a vulnerable guy, and it’s his inability to be vulnerable that leads him to another outlet.

It’s when he’s real with himself and his friends that he finds relief, and when he stops grabbing the bottle.

There’s a climactic scene near the end that’s just as melodramatic as you’d expect. Something in Tony’s business goes horribly wrong, and all the work he had done to shake the addictive nature of his alcoholism is close to getting undone. Jarvis and Bethany are begging him to say no. And he does.

It’s a choice. It’s a day-by-day battle.

Addiction is difficult, and it’s more common than you might think. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Survey on Drug Use and Health:

• 16.1 million people in America suffered from alcoholism in 2011.
• Over 800,000 people reported a cocaine addiction in 2011.
• The number of people receiving treatment for addiction to painkillers and sedatives has doubled since 2002.
• In 2010, around 13 million people reported abusing methamphetamines in their life and approximately 350,000 were regular users.

Addiction takes time and effort. For the body of Christ, it’s imperative that we see addiction as a physical and mental health condition that can’t just be solved by praying it away. It requires real support and encouragement and accountability. For people stuck in addiction, there is hope and there is help. 

With any sin, we need to start with the root cause. Why do we feel the need to seek the addictive thing? Where does that desire come from? Whether or not we beat the addiction in our lifetimes, figuring out the root is a helpful, healing action step. 

We don’t pledge allegiance to a religion, but to a Savior.

Do we ever think about what it means to “pledge allegiance” to something?

I admit that when I say the Pledge of Allegiance at certain events, I don’t really think too much about the words I’m saying. I just go through the motions.

If we can step back and not take it too seriously for a moment, let’s examine the first phrase — “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States.” I know there’s more to it than that, and I don’t want you to take this as me being unpatriotic. 

Why are we pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth? Doesn’t that seem a bit silly? You don’t see me pledging allegiance to the towel that dries me off after a shower, or to the pants that cover my legs when I go to work.

I know the rest of the pledge says the allegiance is to the “Republic for which (the flag) stands,” so it’s not really that silly. It’s a representation of the nation and the group of people, and when we pledge allegiance to the flag, we’re really pledging allegiance to America. Fun fact: we didn’t have an official pledge of allegiance until 1942, so we spent 166 years as a nation without an official pledge. I kinda like that idea.

Did you know there’s also a pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Bible?

My point is not to write a treatise on whether or not we should even have those — I could get on a bad rabbit trail there — but to examine the very idea of allegiance. Did you know that there’s not an official Pledge of Allegiance to Jesus?

If we have a pledge of allegiance to our country, our faith and our book, why shouldn’t we promise fealty to our Savior?

Apollos, Paul or Peter? 

The idea of “allegiance,” to my knowledge, isn’t discussed much in the Bible. After all, the New Testament followers of Jesus were under the rule of the Roman Empire and didn’t have much choice in the matter. 

But we do see 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul discusses divisions in the church at Corinth. Now, this is a church where there’s TONS of divisions and difficulties and problems, but the first one he chooses to address is who people pledge their allegiance to. Verses 10-12 say:

“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’”

Reportedly, the people in Corinth were associating themselves by what teacher or important leader they aligned themselves with. Paul, of course, was the writer of a ton of important letters. Apollos was a powerful preacher. Cephas/Peter was a disciple of Jesus. Christ was, well, Christ. Each had some claim to allegiance or listeners. But as Paul emphasizes in v. 13, only one is worth following: “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 

Paul wasn’t the one who died on the cross. Paul wasn’t the Son of God. He was simply, as he states in v. 17, sent “to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” 

Jesus was the One. He was the One they were to pledge allegiance to. The Greek of v. 12 literally says that they were saying they were “of Paul” and “of Apollos” and so on. Just like Paul being a man “of Tarsus.” It’s who you’re associated, who you belong to.

No, Paul says. We don’t belong to a man. We belong to Jesus.

Where Do You Go to Church?

I’ve heard in a couple Christian comedy routines or other places that, in the south, after someone asks you their name, they ask you where you go to church. While I must say I’ve never had that exact conversation, it seems to be possible.

We often take great pride in where we go to church. As a journalist that covers small-town politics and government in North Carolina, I will often hear or read elected officials proclaiming that they’ve been a member of such-and-such church for this many years. The same information shows up in obituaries and bios of speakers at big events.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Churches can be amazing things that point people to Jesus.

We can often be loud in proclaiming that we are a Christian. Politicians do it all the stinkin’ time, saying that they’re a “Christian first, conservative second and Republican third.” There’s even some Democrats running for the 2020 presidential nomination that have begun to spoke about their faith. I remember having some conversations in high school and college where I would say, with some internal pride, that I was a Christian.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing. We should not be ashamed of being saved by the Savior.

We’ll often list the preachers we listen to and the authors that we read. We have our favorite authors and favorite musicians, and whenever they release a new project, we’re buying it as soon as possible. 

And that is not necessarily a bad thing. We have learned from those men and women and can point others to them for learning, encouragement and help in growth.

Pride in our church or religion or favorite pastors and authors becomes a bad thing when that’s how we primarily identify ourselves. It becomes a bad thing when we’re not willing to admit or see flaws in those things. It becomes a bad thing when those things take precedent over our true allegiance: Jesus.

Defending the Hope

Apologetics and I have had an interesting relationship. I feel that I’m an intellectual guy, but far too often, apologetics can be an aggressive and hostile approach. 

I know plenty of people that enjoy apologetics and do it well and aren’t aggressive and hostile. They’re people that have a passion for Jesus and want others to know Him, and they’re awesome. We need more of them.

One of the primary base verses for apologetics comes in 1 Peter 3. Peter is writing about those who would think ill of Christians, who might even want to harm them. He writes, in verses 14-15:

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

The Greek for “make a defense” is “apologian,” the root of which is “apologia.” The literal translation is “from intelligent reasoning” (“apó” + “lógos) (https://biblehub.com/greek/627.htm). Peter instructs his readers to use intelligent reasoning for the purpose of something. But what is that?

A reason for the hope in them. They were not called to defend their faith as an institution. They were not called to defend their particular church. They were not called to defend their favorite pastor. 

I think the same principle, the same wisdom, the same logic, applies to us.

If our institution, church or pastor are being misunderstood, then sure, we can and probably should defend them. But the outworking of this is that we shouldn’t be afraid to admit that those things — Christianity as a social institution, our church, our pastor — have been, are and will be wrong at times. Why? We’re not ultimately aligned with them. We’re ultimately aligned with Jesus. He is the reason we have hope, not our faith as a societal construct, our church or our pastor.

Jesus deserves our allegiance, more than our country, our pastor, our books, our church, our institutions, etc. Committing to those other things is not inherently bad, and those things can be and have been incredibly helpful in helping us see Jesus.

But if they takes precedence over our allegiance to Jesus, it becomes bad. Jesus is worthy of our allegiance. After all, He’s our Savior. What other reason do you need?

I Like to Impress People. Even Though It Annoys Me When Others Do That.

I went to a Christian college ministry conference during the New Year’s weekend of my junior year at Elon University and met Shai Linne.

Shai is a Christian rapper whose rhymes are often characterized as “lyrical theology.” He attempts to explain spiritual truths and theological points in hip-hop form. He performs one of my favorite songs of all-time, “Mercy and Grace” with label mate Timothy Brindle.

In fact, it was Brindle I brought up when I met Shai. After the normal, “Hey man, I like your music,” thing that you always say when you meet a musician you like, I mentioned that I liked a lot of the guys on Lamp Mode Recordings, his label. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but it went something like this:

ZACH: “Yeah, I love what all you guys on Lamp Mode do — S.O., Timothy Brindle, God’s Servant — it’s good. Particularly Tim’s new stuff.”
SHAI: “Have you listened to Tim’s album ‘Killing Sin’?”
ZACH: “No, I haven’t, not yet.”
SHAI: “Bro, it’s so good.”

Within a couple days, I had bought the album.

Again, I don’t think those are the exact words that were used, but that’s generally how the conversation went.

I was reflecting on that conversation recently as I was listening to an S.O. song. While I may not remember the exact words in the conversation, I remember my motives. I wanted to impress Shai Linne. I wanted to be that guy that, as he left the conference hall that night, he remembered. 

I still carry that attitude in a lot of ways. I’ve had similar conversations with comic book store owners, movie reviewers, journalists, pastors, etc., people whom I’ve tried to impress with my knowledge whether or not that knowledge was actually impressive.

I think there’s a part of all of us that wants to impress people, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But here’s where I get tripped up.

It’s one of my pet peeves when other people try to do that to me. I just think they’re trying to make it all about them and what they know and how cool they are. But I do the same thing!

As I pondered this in my car the other day, I shook my head and said to myself, “Zach, what are you doing?”

Impressing people, I think, is part of being human. We want others to think well of us, to remember us, to think we’re pretty awesome, so we try to impress them. There’s the classic scene in the romantic comedy where the guy tries to do something to get the girl’s attention but ends up making a fool out of himself. There’s the politician who tries to spit off the best statistics to support his/her argument. There’s the friend you debate on Facebook who puffs his chest after owning you in an argument. 

And while the root of trying to impress people isn’t necessarily bad, the danger we encounter could be an even bigger mistake: not being ourselves.

Speaking of the coming Messiah, Isaiah says, “…he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:2b-3). 

Jesus, when He came, was nothing special, and nothing He did was ever to impress anyone. He lived and spoke and work in a way that brought glory to the Father, not to Himself. He never pretended to know something He didn’t, never brought something up in conversation to try to make someone think He was awesome.

In fact — in something that has always confused me — He often told people to not talk about what He did for them. 

If I were Jesus, I’d be trying to find ways to bring up what I could do and what I knew. I like to think of myself as a pretty humble, non-assuming dude, but when it comes to conversations like the one I had with Shai, I prove that totally wrong. I’m just an attention seeker like everybody else. 

God did not call us to draw attention to ourselves. His call for us, I believe, is like what Paul says to the Romans is their’s: “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of (Jesus’) name among all the nations” (Romans 1:5). I believe that’s our’s too. We aren’t called to bring about people thinking we’re awesome and that we know a lot. We’re called to bring about people believing in Jesus.

That’s not to say we can’t have conversations about things we know about, that we can’t share the knowledge we have with someone else for the purpose of establishing a connection. Why do we do it? Why are we trying to impress people? 

I think we can impress people, but for the sake of Jesus. We can impress them with the beauty of His grace, the depth of His love and the gravity of His compassion. We can impress them with the prophetic way God and His people spoke and wrote of the world and of humanity. We can impress them with the way we take His words and His example so seriously that we can’t help but live like Jesus.

That’s the type of impressing I need to work on. 

We Need to Rethink How We Talk about LGBTQ

We journalists like studies. They help us put stories and topics in context.

So a study released in 2018 exploring the association between importance of religion and suicide ideation is obviously going to interest me.

If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time, or you’re a friend of mine, you know that religion and mental health are two of my favorite topics. So of course, I wanted to learn about this study. Unfortunately, it’s $4 to access, but thankfully there was a news article about it from Reuters titled “Religious faith linked to suicidal behavior in LGBQ adults.”

If you’ve followed news somewhat closely, you’ve got to be aware of the stories of LGBTQ individuals, teens in particular, that take their own lives with motivations strongly related to their sexuality. According to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides mental health support to LGBTQ youth, gay/lesbian teens “seriously contemplate suicide” nearly three times more than straight youth and are five times as likely to attempt suicide.

So this study, reported in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, can’t be that surprising. Analyzing data from the multiple surveys on mental health of college students, the numbers were startling. While 3.7 percent of heterosexual young adults reported recent thoughts of suicide, the numbers increased for those questioning their sexuality (16.4 percent), living bisexual (11.4 percent) or identifying as gay or lesbian (6.5 percent). 

The numbers jump when it comes to attempting suicide: 5 percent for heterosexual youth, 20 percent for bisexual, 17 percent for questioning and 14 percent for gay or lesbian. 

The heartbreaking statistic came here:

“For bisexual youth, the importance of religion was not associated with suicidal behavior, while religiosity was protective against thoughts of suicide and suicidal attempts in the heterosexual youth. But lesbians and gays who reported that religion was important to them were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts. For lesbians only, religion was associated with a 52 percent increased likelihood of suicidal thinking.

Questioning individuals were almost three times as likely to have attempted suicide recently if they reported that religion was very important to them.”

One of the study’s authors, John R. Blosnich of West Virginia’s Injury Control Research Center, told the Huffington Post that studies for years have said considering religion important has limited the number of people considering suicide. But this study, as well as other surveys and data, indicates that things are different when it comes to sexual minorities.

So what do we do?

What Role Did the Church Play?

Before we get going: this is not an evaluation of whether or not homosexuality is a sin. That’s not the point of this piece. 

Anyway, most scientists of any stripe — social, physical, organic, chemistry, etc. — will tell you that correlation does not equal causation, and I agree. But this study begs a question:

Has the Christian church played a role in this?

The HuffPo article says, accurately, that “some of America’s largest religious denominations still hold non-affirming views of queer sexuality,” including the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church *(see note at the bottom of this article)*. HuffPo quotes Amelia Markham, described as a “queer Christian activist” with The Reformation Project, an LBTQ-affirming Christian group, saying more needs to be done in helping Christians have “a more nuanced view of queer sexuality.”

“There are some serious questions we have to begin asking ourselves if maintaining one interpretation of our sacred text is demonstrably linked to bodily harm and spiritual devastation for an entire group of people,” Markham said. “That is something I hope religious folks across the board would begin to think and pray more critically through.”

Markham’s call is serious, and based on the numbers, I think it would be dishonest if the Christian church, particularly the evangelical wing, didn’t ask itself if it played a role in these numbers, these realities. 

Again, correlation doesn’t equal causation, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did in this case. I’ve lived my whole life in a church culture that severely stigmatizes LGBTQ people, intentionally or not. The Christian evangelical community for many years has said flat-out that homosexuality is a sin, with some churches creating little to no space for LGBTQ people in churches, sometimes to negative consequences.

Countless stories have been told of teens or youth that have come out to their families and been rejected, sometimes kicked out. I listened to a podcast recently featuring Trey Pearson, former lead singer of the Christian band Everyday Sunday, who said he experienced severe trauma and pain due to fighting his sexual feelings for years because of his church upbringing. Countless Christian authors and speakers, including Rachel Held Evans and Jen Hatmaker, were more or less banished from evangelical circles due to their belief that homosexuality is not a sin.

Very often, evangelical Christians defend their actions and beliefs with the statement that they’re just sticking to the Bible, defending God’s Word and loving people to tell them they’re sinners. “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” they say. And while I’m sure there are many that are properly loving their LGBTQ family and friends and reflecting Christ in doing it, there are many LGBTQ people who have left the church and left God at least in part due to how they were treated by so-called Christians.

What Did Jesus Do?

Again, this is not a conversation about the sinfulness or non-sinfulness of homosexuality. This is a conversation about the effect the church’s position and attitude and approach to same-sex attraction and homosexuality has had on real people and real lives.

The culture hasn’t always done well with it, first of all. In 1998, gay college student Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming, an event that became a lynchpin for hate crimes due to looming suspicion the attack was motivated by Shepard’s sexuality. In 2010, 18-year-old Rutgers student Tyler Clementi committed suicide after his roommate recorded Clementi’s intimate encounter with another male. 

These events have caused a societal push for LGBTQ acceptance and understanding and further discussion about mental health and suicide. That’s all awesome, in my opinion. And while some Christian congregations are actively addressing these issues in the right way, it’s my opinion that the church at large is falling behind on both counts.

How often are Christian blog posts written about helping people that identify as LGBTQ that doesn’t involve telling them they’re sinful? How often are sermons given where we’re encouraged to learn from and understand our gay and lesbian neighbors, friends and family members? I’m sure those things happen, but not enough. We’re often more concerned with being “right” than being “a good neighbor.”

What did Paul do, and what did Jesus do, more importantly? The people that were considered outside the “religious crowd,” how did he handle them?

He loved them. And no, I’m not talking about loving people by “telling them the truth.” Yes, that is a form of love, but anything LGBTQ person that’s been around an evangelical Christian has more likely than not already received that kind of love. 

What Jesus did is eat. Matthew 9:10-13 —

“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

Eating was a very intimate thing to do in those times. You’d sit at a table and take your shoes off, recline and spend time. There were no cell phones, no menus, no TVs nearby. Just the food and the people. 

Jesus ate with people labeled “sinners,” both in this passage and other times. In this particular passage, both Matthew and the Pharisees refer to Jesus’ dinner guests as “sinners.” Everyone at the time sinned, so the distinction made here is about identity. These people were identified by their sin — not their profession, not their father or family, but their sin. They were outcasts, pariahs, weirdos. But Jesus loved them the same.

In the current evangelical Christian culture, members of the LGBTQ community are among today’s “sinners.” They’re outcasts, pariahs, weirdos, different. Far too often, the church today is known for shunning those “sinners” instead of eating with them, loving them, appreciating them as people created in the image of God.

The Concept Falls Short

This is where “hate the sin, love the sinner” falls short on so many levels. I get the concept: love the people, hate what they do. But in practice, it fails far too often.

What happens when someone drinks too much alcohol? We may say, “Hey, he/she is drunk.” That person becomes defined by their actions. We do it with so many things: profession, interests, religion, etc. 

Members of the LGBTQ community often take pride in their sexuality and make that a primary identifier, something the evangelical church picks up on. Because the “sin” begins to identify the “sinner” in our minds, they become interchangeable, and we begin to hate the sinner. 

Most of this happens subconsciously and unintentionally, I believe, but we begin to treat people the way the biblical culture treated “sinners,” making them outsiders and pariahs. We spend more time trying to change them than love them. 

And then we go in on how bad the LGBTQ culture is. It’s all about how they need to change and how the “militant gay agenda” is ruining America and allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with is dangerous for our children. Again, not everyone is like that, but it’s said way too often.

First of all, imagine if Christians had been treated like members of the LGBTQ community have been treated over most of the last 40-50 years. Wouldn’t we be frustrated with the persecution? For a long time, sexual orientation and gender identity weren’t protected classes in discrimination laws. Imagine if religion was in the same place.

Second, to group the entire LGBTQ community, as some do, with the “militant gay agenda” is dishonest. Most, I believe, just want to live their lives and be treated fairly. To see extremists who call themselves “born again” compare LGBTQ people to the Ku Klux Klan would make anybody mad.

It’s insulting. It’s humiliating. It’s discriminatory. No wonder they don’t like us.

But some of them like Jesus. I wonder why. 

Maybe it was because He never spoke about the “militant pantheistic agenda” of the Roman Empire. Maybe it was because He hung out with the pariahs. He listened, loved and taught. He was condemning of the religious people, those who were gleeful in telling people why they were wrong. He encouraged all to repent while turning water to wine and five loaves and two fish into an overwhelming feast.

As Jesus said in Matthew 9, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” His ultimate desire was for people to love one another. Yes, His message was one of repentance and of turning from sin, but how did He go about His ministry? Where do we see His efforts? In the good news of salvation, in the dying on the cross for our sins to be forgiven. “Follow me,” he told the disciples, “and I will make you fishers of men.” He says to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” He started with mercy and love and following Him. 

Maybe we should try to look more like him. Be listeners. Ask questions. Learn. Sympathize. Be compassionate. Treat people the way you would wish to be treated. 

That’s the Golden Rule, right?

I’ll end with a quote from a guy named Jeff Johnston with Focus on the Family. He wrote an incredibly powerful and helpful piece on “9 Ways to Reach Out to a Gay-Identified Friend,” which you should really check out. Here’s a bit:

“Imagine attending a gay pride parade and hearing insults shouted by church people standing on the sidelines. Would you want to follow a God like the one they’re displaying? Or imagine attending church and hearing derogatory language from the pulpit. Would you want to develop relationships with those people?”

– – – – – – – – – 

*Side note: the UMC’s official Book of Doctrine states that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” but most, American Methodists affirm LGBTQ individuals in their theology. (https://www.prri.org/spotlight/slim-majority-of-methodists-support-same-sex-marriage/)