CHRISTIAN AGENTS OF HATE: The failure of many, if not most, professing Christians is being agents of hateful rhetoric against LGBT people by many clergy and evangelists

 

¨There is absolutely no Godly, biblical, or constitutional reason why lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should not enjoy every single civil and sacramental right that accrues to every other citizen!¨

By The Reverend Dr. Jerry Maneker

¨...The Church, Christ's Church, the ecclesia, 'the called out ones,' are to obey the only Commandments Jesus gave us: to love God by trusting Him over and above seen circumstances; to love others and not to judge them. That's it! The only Gospel to be found in Christianity is the Gospel of grace, "the good news," the fact that through Jesus God has bestowed upon us His unmerited favor!

The proponents of the false gospel of legalism, perfectionism, and exclusion, which is certainly not "good news," and certainly doesn't represent the commandment Jesus gave us to love others, is diametrically opposed to the Gospel, and its proponents have, unfortunately, virtually taken over most of the organized Church. Most of the organized Church has aligned itself with the most reactionary forces in secular society, which is also diametrically opposed to the Christian mandate that we love others by also fighting for justice for all of God's children.

Therefore, my passion is two fold: 1. To help reclaim Christianity from those who have substituted their own prejudices and mind-sets for the Gospel, and have sought to impose those prejudices and mind-sets on others; 2. Fight for full and equal civil and sacramental rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

There is absolutely no Godly, biblical, or constitutional reason why lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should not enjoy every single civil and sacramental right that accrues to every other citizen! The specious arguments presented by all too many clergy and their followers don't stand up to biblical, logical, empirical, or constitutional scrutiny; those arguments betray the very Gospel that Christians are called upon to preach and to live!

All Christians are called upon to live, not in 'time' but to live in 'eternity!' We are to be agents of God's love in this sin-cursed world, and if we're not such agents we are betraying both the Gospel and Jesus Himself!

The failure of many, if not most, professing Christians in being such agents; the hateful rhetoric against LGBT people by many clergy and evangelists; the failure of most clergy to condemn hateful rhetoric against LGBT people; the enmeshment of much of the organized Church with reactionary secular forces that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo from which they are frequently quite handsomely rewarded; the bureaucratization of most of the organized Church that is all too often obsessed with hierarchy, patriarchy, incestuous socialization, and building beautification, over and above addressing such burning issues as war and poverty; the failure of most of the organized Church to be in the vanguard of seeking full and equal civil rights and civil liberties for LGBT people; the suffering of so many LGBT people and their families at the hands of both religious and political forces, have spurred me to expend as much energy as possible in confronting these perversions of the Gospel. HERE

· Thanks to The Reverend Dr. Jerry Maneker
· Thanks to A Christian Voice for LGBT Christians, sidebar
· Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing