Sympathy for the Sinner, Again

Like a lot of people, I had the whiplash moment when I read about the Odgaards in the New York Times' recent Evangelicals Despair. The article focuses on the couple in New York who ran a charming general-purpose wedding chapel before gay marriage. When threatened with the loss of their business license, they ended up selling the chapel to a church which, because it is a specifically religious institution, can kick out the gays with impunity.

But I can't really hate on them. The Odgaard's are depicted with some sympathy:

Overnight, it seemed everyone they knew had a gay relative or friend. ... "It all flipped so fast. Suddenly we were in the minority. That was kind of a scary feeling. It makes you wonder where all the Christians went."

And here's the problem: the Christians never went away. They were always here. They're still here.

The Odgaards don't appreciate the way their neighbors go down among the lepers, the papuers, and the homosexuals, and deal with them with love and heart. They don't appreciate that excluding gay people from the body of Christ is not only unbiblical, it's outright immoral. It's not what Jesus would have wanted, or what he would have done. In Acts 10, Peter makes the case that followers of Christ have no argument that anyone is unclean or profane, that anyone can be turned away. Jesus heals the centurion's lover in Matthew 8; Peter welcomes another centurion in Acts 11. (Anyone who thinks Peter's vision is only about food is simply trying to excuse their own bigotry.)

While the Catholics and the Evangelicals wring their hands because their interpretation isn't the one being heard, the rest of us are moving on with our lives. Whether you believe or not, Christians ought to know what Peter said: "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean."

The Christians are still here. It's a shame the Odgaard's aren't among them.