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A Love Letter To My Anti-Gay Christian Friend

A Love Letter To My Anti-Gay Christian Friend

Last updated on: October 18, 2017 at 1:19 pm by Susan Cottrell

A Love Letter To My Anti-Gay Christian Friend 2017-10-18T13:19:35-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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My friend, you are a lovely soul. You pour out the love of Jesus to strangers and those in pain. The sweet aroma of God is around you, and it inspires hope to the hopeless. But your attitude about and repulsion for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people does not suit you.

It doesn’t fit the compassion you otherwise exude – compassion that comes from the pit of pain and despair. You helped teach me not to judge others, saying, “We have not walked in their shoes.” You should know, having walked the lonely road, and been kicked and condemned and treated harshly. Have you forgotten that? Has some dementia erased that hard-earned empathy and shoved you sharply onto the judge’s bench?

Your repugnance to the gay community goes against the very nature of Jesus so present in you in many other ways. It is a dark, hard spot that overshadows the love you have lived from. It is a rasp in your voice as you talk about “those people,” a virus you’ve picked up from those seemingly more concerned with their bank account than the love of God that’s always motivated you.

Your aversion to these people you’ve never met adds sad lines to your face, erasing your joy. Your meanness when you talk about them is a little frightening. Your coldness when you think about them belies something deep-rooted and unresolved. Something ugly.

None of this suits the creation of God that you are. None of this suits the life of Jesus you claim to follow. You may justify it with words like “sin,” “unnatural” and “against God’s design.” But none of that is your business, to be honest.

This is about you. This reflects on you. This makes you harsh, judgmental.

This is you closing off the flow of God’s love for those you don’t deem worthy. As if you are on God’s selection committee, to decide who has received God’s love grant and who has missed the opportunity this year but may apply again next year, if by then they demonstrate the necessary qualifications.

Stated like this, it sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it?

I am greatly concerned for you. This is so unlike the you I have known for years. This is so unlike the Jesus I know you love.

I do not know if you will recover. You might. Recovery is possible. But you must ‘treat’ the issue. Trust God, surrender your old ways and take on new habits. You need rich green vegetables and lean proteins, no more refined sugars and cream puffs.

A tragic number of people given this choice stick with their old ways – whether in their actual physical health, or in their role as God’s judge for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Just as sugar feeds cancer that eventually overtakes a body, judgment displaces kindness and crowds out love. Left on its own, this malignancy will fill more and more of your life.

Sadly, some people find their old ways comforting and new ways scary and difficult. They will go to the grave with this harshness in them, by their own resistance.

Only you can choose.

I miss you. I miss the way you used to live, the way you used to love.

– Susan

We have ‘pay-what-you-can’ video courses helping those in the faith community be more inclusive while strengthening their faith; helping parents love, accept & affirm their LGBTQI children; and helping LGBTQI heal shame from family, church & community wounds. We also have private Facebook support groups for parents, and other resources. Please click here.

*Photo courtesy of Jim Palmer

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