John Shore is a prolific Evangelical Christian writer and founder of "Unfundamentalist Christian." Now John is gay-affirming and with him it's; "There is no middle ground, that's what the Bible says, shut your mouth!" I love John. Now there is Andrew Marin, also a prolific Christian writer and founder of the "Marin Foundation" with their "I'm Sorry" campaign (get it? It's a campaign to say to gays; "I'm sorry for how the Church has treated you."), but you can't get out of Andrew if he's affirming of homosexuality with the Bible or not. He'll straddle the fence even if his pants split. He once gave his reason that is neither here nor there without giving a direct answer. I give him credit, not love because he outright won't just say how he believes.
Whether Andrew knows this or not, everyone pretty much knows he believes the Bible condemns homosexuality. The thing with Andrew is that he stretches the message of the love of Christ over bad Bible teaching like was a big Persian rug that he hopes hides what the Bible says on homosexuality, but makes people ask; "What's that big lump under this pretty rug?" I'm convinced Andrew will never come right out and state how he really feels no matter how much you try to pry it out of him. Now there is something to be said about the "FOCUS ON ONLY LOVE! FOCUS ON ONLY LOVE" Message that WILL bring many who felt ostracized by the Church to Christ, but this doesn't answer the big Bible question on homosexuality. Now you have TWO lumps under the rug people can't help but notice. One is what the Bible says on homosexuality and the other is what Andrew says on it.
It was only a matter of time when John and Andrew came to blows on social media, what was bound to happen with two Christian powerhouses having ministries reaching out to the homosexual community.
I understood John's frustration with Andrew because bringing a gay kid into the faith saying; "God loves you and the Church was wrong to say bad things to you, but now look at the fine print of the Bible whenever you have the time" CAN be devastating to a child with finding out God's love was conditional after all. I'm sure Andrew's reasoning is; "Don't let the Bible get in the way of a good witness!... They'll learn their sexuality is wrong later."
When the smoke cleared, Andrew left to fight other battles with gays who were suspicions about his motivation AND Christians who think Andrew is hiding the Bible condemns homosexuality message (they're right) with only talking about love.
Shore said on his blog about the exchange with Andrew:
"I don’t expect to hear from him (Andrew) again. But I’m confident that if I do,
he won’t say anything beyond how important it is to continue the
dialogue, to keep building bridges, to “live in the tension,” to reach
out in love, fuzzy, fuzzy, blah, blah, tastes great, less filling.
Because selling that kind of sugar-powdered waffle is how Andrew makes
his money."
Later, when John received criticism for what looked like a less-than-Christian response to Andrew, he went further stating:
"... folks have made the point that Andrew’s work is valuable because he
is “building bridges”—because he is, as one reader put it, “creating
stepping stones from one end of the spectrum to the other.” They
appreciate Marin establishing a neutral, non-judgmental, values-free
middle ground where parties on either side of the gay-Christian debate
can meet to together discuss and explore the issue.
And I certainly understand how great that sounds.
But
it’s not great. It doesn’t even make sense. Because when it comes to
the issue of LGBT equality, there is no middle ground. There can’t be.
The Christian/LGBT issue is a moral issue. And moral issues are by definition about right and wrong.
And
this particular moral issue is one of no small consequence. There
couldn’t be more at stake with it. The Christians on one side of this
debate are claiming that, in the eyes of God, those on the other side
are less than human."
Whoooosh! Goodbye middle ground.
John goes on...
"No
matter how strenuously he or she might deny it, any Christian who fails
to forthrightly and unambiguously assert that there is nothing
whatsoever inherently immoral about same-sex relationships has
chosen a side in this conflict. They’ve chosen to perpetuate the
maligning, ostracizing, and degradation of gay people by Christians. If
you don’t stop one person from abusing another, what good are you to
the victim? To a starving man, the person who can’t decide whether or
not they want to share their food is no better than the person who
outright refuses to."
... well said, John.
I bring up this incident between John and Andrew because I'm seeing this being played out more and more now. Those like John and myself having to confront the Andrews of the world with hard Scripture (in our case, affirming) over their exuberance of love and acceptance that's hiding a bill of goods that says you have to be alone for the rest of your life or make an opposite-sex relationship work once your foot is in salvation's door.
