Two-faced Christians

Dear American Christians~

Way too many of you are two-faced. You are hypocrites.

You want it your way. You discriminate against the things which particularly offend you, but you give a pass to the rest.

You Christians love to cite how the New Testament calls homosexuality a sin, but you often are blind to the rest of the sins in lists like this one from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.”

Did you notice the closing words? “And that is what some of you WERE.”

Drunkards? Christians get drunk with the best of them. This was a concern of mine as a pastor and often made it into my sermons. After one lengthy discourse on it, an upstanding member said, “Pastor, just drop it. We aren’t changing for you.” And they didn’t.

Greedy? Christians gamble and play the lottery hoping to get rich quick so they can just spend more money on themselves. In the unending chase of even more of the almighty dollar, Christians will forsake marital and parental responsibilities.

Swindlers? Christians will lie or cheat their way to a deal or to pay fewer taxes and then judge themselves righteous. “Everyone does it” takes care of it.

Sexually immoral? Christians act as if “Thou shalt not commit adultery” has been stricken from the Ten Commandments as they engage in sex outside of marriage, shacking up, having children without marriage, at the same rate as so-called “pagans.” As a pastor, three of every four couples were living together when they came to me with their wedding plans.

Adulterers? Christians create unbiblical divorce from their failure to put their hearts into the vows they made to their spouses, just like any other American. Instead of “for better or for worse,” they declare, “I didn’t sign up for this” and out the door they go to greener pastures.

Wrongdoers? Wrongdoing is so prevalent among Christians, even in carrying out the business of congregations, that the typical response is to shrug one’s shoulders and try to figure out how to deal with the behavior of their fellow church member, but never expect anyone to be so offended that a newspaper article would get written because one Christian refused to bake a cake for a wrongdoer’s wedding.

None of these sins is rated more or less offensive to the Lord. All are equally offensive. All are equally damnable. Yet, as a child sticks up his nose at a plate of some unknown vegetable, you Christians do the same at the whole LGBT alphabet and then proceed to judge yourselves righteous as you allow, ignore, and pretend all of these other sins are not happening under your noses or, even more, practiced by you.

The Lord Jesus must really be smiling down on you. “That’s my boy! There’s my girl! Condemn those homosexual offenders and transgender freaks! You show them what righteous indignation is all about!”

Um, hold on a minute.

The Lord Jesus ate with the most reviled of His time (and was criticized by the religious leaders) in order to show them the love of God, while you Christians don’t dare get your hands dirty with sinners? Who are you, that you are better than anyone else? Do you not want your fellow man to know God’s love in Christ and believe in Him? How are you going to speak the Gospel to anyone if you won’t get over how offended you are by them?

God is offended by every sin ever committed, yet He did not desire that we be left stuck in our sins and damned. He made His Son, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). He works through the Church, and the Church is made up of believers, and believers spread the Good News about Jesus Christ.

But you pick and choose with whom you will be Christlike. You decide whose sins are too bad because they offend you too much, yet in every New Testament list of sins is recorded all of the everyday sins which all of you Christians commit, and all too often you only give a wink of repentance at so many of them.

Who are you to pick and choose which sins offend you too much that you cannot deal with that person, and which ones get a pass?

So you would not bake a cake for a gay wedding? Would you do so for a wedding where the two people are atheists? The First Commandment is to have no other gods before the true God, yet atheists spit in God’s eye and tell Him He does not even exist. Do you put up with such sacrilege? Will you continue to insist, “If I don’t know they are atheists when I bake their cake, then I am not giving offense to anyone”?

You know, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not being used. I bet you could pick it up cheap.

You Christians believe God’s Word, that the Holy Spirit does His work in the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so tell the Gospel to people. Through your actions, show them what true love is. Practice the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5) to everyone. Give the Holy Spirit something to work with!

Scripture would have us win our brother over. How will you ever win over the person whom you believe to be a sinner if you will never engage him? Beating him over the head with his sins will not do it. Showing him the love and compassion of Jesus Christ, which is supposed to be flowing through your veins by the presence of the Holy Spirit and the gift of faith, is the way to win him over.

Show him that you truly believe that YOU are the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), that you desire all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth just as your Lord does (1 Timothy 2:4), and talk to him as one person talks to another who has concern. Show him respect—the same respect that you want from him.

I have made wonderful transgender, gay, bi, queer, pansexual, and gender fluid friends over the past year, people whom I treat with respect. When I am with them in meetings, at rallies, on Q & A panels, when working for our civil rights, I am not in church. I am in the civil realm, where all Americans who are acting lawfully shall have the full protections of all laws. Their so-called “lifestyle” is not the issue, so long as they are obeying the laws of the land.

Should they want to go to church with me, I would rejoice! When anyone—no matter his “lifestyle”—finds himself believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and wants to belong to a Christian church, then he places himself under the Word of God in that congregation. If a person does not come to faith, he is not under the laws of Christianity for his temporal life.

When we are baking cakes for weddings, when we are hiring people in the workplace, when we are showing apartments to prospective renters, we are not in church. We are in the secular world where all law-abiding Americans are equal—are supposed to be equal.

Folks will only be interested in Christianity when we humble ourselves and stop the holier-than-thou, righteous indignation which leads to the worst hypocrisy. The LGBT community is finding the Christian faith detestable because of this, and I don’t blame them.

I don’t blame them for rejecting Christianity because of the kind of Christianity they too often see being practiced by you.

Among my LGBT friends, I am the only one who practices traditional Christianity. Because I treat these people with friendliness and respect, they do the same for me.

Would you hang around anyone who intends to beat you until you come around to his position?

We American Christians are doing wrong by the Lord Jesus, condemning those we want to condemn and giving a pass to our relatives, to our friends, to the members of our churches, to whatever sins we want to practice and not give up because, frankly, we enjoy them.

I am all for religious rights. When those rights are carried out unevenly, however, they become wrongs for some of our most fragile in society, for those who cannot speak up for themselves, for those who do not have political or economic resources, for those who are oppressed.

When citizens are living lawfully, how can it be legal to treat them differently? When a person is law-abiding, shall he not have the same rights and privileges to pursue work, housing, and pleasure equally with every other American?

It is sad that this often gets labeled as baking cakes for gay weddings. What we are talking about are the most basic rights. Any LGBT person, when not specifically protected, can be denied housing, lose a job, and something as simple as being told he/she/they cannot eat in a restaurant if the owner rejects him/her/them.

Christians, I do not want your rights impinged. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and all, I do not want your rights impinged.

What I want from you Christians is fairness. When you are not in church, please live in a Christlike way and treat all people as you want them to treat you. If you are going to discriminate against someone for being LGBT, then check your sin list and play fair all the way around.

It is the Christian thing to do.