Mixed messages . . .

I read a recent article in which Pope Francis is reported to have stated (in the context of whether gay priests should be allowed in the Roman Catholic Church): “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis told reporters, speaking in Italian but using the English word 'gay'.” -- as reported by Rachel Donadio, the European Culture Correspondent for the New York Times, in the Times on July 29, 2013.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/world/europe/pope-francis-gay-priests.html?_r=0)   I see this as an interesting time to begin a conversation about the Church and gays and lesbians.  

The message the Church has been giving lesbians and gays has become increasingly mixed in the past few years . . .  The quote from Pope Francis was quickly followed (in the article) by an assurance that nothing had changed objectively in Roman Catholic moral teachings, even with the new quote.

The current split message for me can be seen much closer to home.  Fairly recently, a retired minister at the church where I currently attend with my family, gave a sermon in which he also said we should love our gay brothers and sisters.  . . .   Simultaneously, that same retired minister is dead set against any gay or lesbian who is honest about being non-celibate from being allowed official membership in the church.  At a recent meeting of the church board, he voted “no” when asked about the transfer of a member to the church from another congregation, because he knew the woman was in a long-term relationship with another woman, and had adopted a child.  

I talked to him, trying to understand the apparent disconnect between “love them” but “don’t let them be in the church.”   He based it on what he called gays and lesbians “choosing a lifestyle in open rebellion against God.”  . . .  That is, he views any non-celibate gay or lesbian person as engaged in an anti-Biblical lifestyle of intentional sin.  As to the "love" part of his message, he stated that since “we are all sinners,” therefore we can love these people in “open rebellion against God” since no sin is worse than another sin.

On one hand, therefore, the claim is that this issue is so clear cut that anyone disagreeing with the traditional viewpoint is engaging in “rebellion against God” and can’t be in the church.   On the other hand, since we are all sinners, therefore we can love them and accept them as humans.

To my mind, this is an incredibly mixed signal being sent.  As I hear it, the message seems to be something along the lines of - “we are all sinners, but I (although a sinner) can be in the church, and you (although a sinner) can’t - because my sins aren’t open rebellion against God, but yours are.”

I am going to write a series of posts that examine the question of how such a seriously mixed message came to be, and my own thoughts on how to resolve that message in a way that respects both the Christian tradition and the growing recognition (even in the Church) that sexual orientation is a real thing.