Weaponized Scripture

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I've recently been trying to find a way to respond to the "ex-gay" movement that has resurfaced. It's a repackaged version of conversion therapy, suggesting that LGBTQ+ Christians leave their "lifestyle" and attempt to live straight lives.

It broke my heart. Then it got me reflecting on how much abuse and false doctrine has come out of the Christian church.

There were Christians at lynchings.
There were chaplains on slave ships.
There were pastors preaching that god supported slavery.

We would like to believe that times have changed, that the ugliness of the crusades and lynchings and crucifixion are in our past. Yet here we are, people are still being hated and killed for who they are, and for who we love.

I dealt with suicidal attempts and ideation for over a decade, it took coming out publicly for the thoughts of suicide to finally fade away.

One of my dear friends was psychically beat with a Bible growing up, in an attempt to "get the gay out".

Kids are bullied, kicked out of their homes and left homeless because they choose to come out.

People are attacked on streets and subways because of their sexuality and gender.

Rates of suicide, self-harm, and mental illness skyrocket for LGBTQ+ individuals because of the level of hate we are faced with on a regular basis, often by the people we loved most.

Countless people have been killed by bad theology. Whether it be the genocide of the old testament, the slavery of this past millennia, or the discrimination of queer people today- it's never okay to use religion as an excuse to destroy people who are different from us. Too often the Bible has been used as a weapon against the oppressed.

My Christian friends, I urge you to consider the entire narrative arc of our scriptures. There are so many stories in the bible where "god's people" excluded certain groups, only to later be called by God to include those they had harmed. Whether it be the story of Hagar, the Moabites, the Gentiles or the Samaritans- the outsiders were always brought to the inside. The Bible is the story of a people group whose theology was constantly expanding and changing to include more outsiders in the Kingdom of God. The Bible calls us to change our theology when it brings destruction, to seek fullness of life for all.. Because we are all made in the image of God.

I will not be quoting Bible verses at any of you in this post, because honestly there are already countless books on this subject, and if you do carry a deep love for scriptures you will want to learn this all for yourself. If you would like more resources for understanding scriptures around homosexuality, I suggest you begin with Unclobbered by Colby Martin, it is written by a straight pastor and brings deep theology to an accessible level. If you would like to dive deeper, you can find theologians discussing queer theology and several other authors such as Matthew Vines and Amber Cantorna. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about other resources for understanding this.

The word that is commonly translated to "repent" in the Bible is actually the Greek word "metanoia", it means a change of heart and mind. Would you answer the call to metanoia?