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Jenn Odell July 8 at 2:08pm

Would you ever take part in a demonstration such as the one described below?

it seems to me...: I Hugged a Man in His Underwear. And I am Proud.

Jeremy Williams July 9 at 8:22am

The short answer is no. I found the post a very interesting read (and I would have read it regardless of the post name because you sent it to me). I feel that, in general, Christians shouldn't demonstrate. This is not a rule, I want to stress, and my sentiment applies most strongly to Christians who demonstrate to convey their annoyance / hate / condemnation. It's worth noting that the only people that Jesus preached condemnation to were the religious people. Paul backs this up in in 1st Cor 6 - we have no business judging non-believers. That's God's job. It is ours neither to judge nor condemn people who don't love Jesus. If we do, we put ourselves in the place of God as the pharisees did in Jesus' day.
God cares about our hearts, and will use a relationship with us to change our words and deeds until they are in alignment with Him. Changing words and deeds first is profitless, so telling non-Christians "Don't do that sin" is not only hypocritical, it's unhelpful too.
We should always repent and ask forgiveness for our own sin. This demonstration, though, is a grey area. Some of these protesters are legitimately apologizing, but many are repenting of the sins of others. That doesn't work. It's no different than Jesus' parable of the pharisee and the tax collector in Luk 18:10. It's just a different form of arrogance - judging yourself to be better than those Christians who judge themselves to be "better than the homos". You see, it's a trap. If you've sinned against someone, God calls you to first repent and second to seek reconciliation. With that person, though, not with a parade. Not with a televised press release like apologetic celebrities. True reconciliation demands 1) repentance of the offender, 2) forgiveness from the one sinned against. The reconciliation the author blogged about is false, because the people who hurt these gays and lesbians would hurt them again at the first opportunity. It would be appropriate to say or hold signs saying "I love you". To say "Jesus loves you". To say "God is a perfect father, and wants a relationship with you." But not "I'm sorry."

Sexual identity is a lightning rod issue, because people attach so much of their identity to it while at the same time it is also (relative to the sins of pride, cowardice, greed, wrath etc, which also tend to attach to one's identity ("I'm not argumentative, I'm Italian!")) outwardly visible. I had attached to my identity the lack of desire to have children. I believed that it was just "who I was". Reading scripture and praying, though, I was unable to escape the conclusion that "who I was" was wrong. If we don't give God the opportunity to rewrite what we consider to be the fundamental elements of ourselves, we close ourselves off from full relationship with Him. God has changed my heart, and I want to be a father now. "Who I am" has changed. To return to the specific point, a Christian has a duty to speak the truth, and an equal duty to love and not judge non-Christians. Error may be found on either side of that thin line. It' supposed to be hard.
"For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Mat 7:14

Thank you for sending this to me. How are you?
-J