The other day, I had an incredibly humbling experience. I was walking around the UW campus with no real agenda (I had about three hours until my next class) and merely trying to enjoy some of the ever-fleeting sunshine.
As I walked through Red Square, I noticed a man carrying a large sign—hoisting, rather, for it was incredibly large. It read, “GOD HATES THE SINNER” in bold, angry letters that were meant to grab my attention, lest I be cast into a pit of eternal damnation. The man was shouting, nearly incoherently, about his perception of God as a vengeful, angry, bitter Being who has watched His creation turn on him and on itself. I was intrigued, so I stopped my aimless wandering and started walking closer to him.
Did I mention there was a crowd of about one hundred gathered around him?
The man put down his sign and began “preaching” as I immersed myself in the crowd of people, listening to the man’s tirade.
People were raising their hands, objecting to what he was saying; when he called on them, he would scream at them for being fake Christians and hypocrites. Or he would call them “demons,” “evildoers,” and “hell-bound” if they expressed any disbelief in God. Interestingly, the man was quite a student of the Bible—he recited verses and whole passages as if he was a scholar. But his take on the verses, such as calling God a “hateful, angry God” simply didn’t jive with anything that Jesus taught.
He spent a great deal of time discussing the evils of being gay, yelling about how Hell was a place where gay rape was prevalent. As he screamed about this, he became very graphic and crass, seemingly thinking that such language was fine as long as he was using it in a hateful manner towards those “more sinful” than himself. Many people in the crowd became disgusted and left.
Disheartening as it was, I stayed for about two hours, listening to the man shout epithets and slurs toward everyone that God “hated.” I need to confess that it would be hard for me to think of an example of another time I have felt such dislike and disgust for another person—especially one who called himself a follower of Christ.
Not long before I decided to leave, something interesting happened. A girl walked up to the crowd and immediately raised her hand.
He called on her, and she stated, “I’m gay. How come Jesus doesn’t love me?”
The man had a perfect opportunity to explain that Jesus’ love was not exclusive. He could have gone into great detail about how Jesus loved her more than anyone possibly could. He could have described that Jesus loved people regardless of sexuality, regardless of sin, and regardless of any baggage that a person had. But the man didn’t.
He responded by calling the girl a “muff-diver.”
I think the sound of God’s heart breaking was lost in the sound of the collective gasp that escaped from the crowd. The girl paled, then turned red, and then got up and left.
I could write pages about how the man was clearly misled in his beliefs. I could go on about how he might have ruined any chance for the girl, and the crowd, to open her heart to God’s love. I could even go into the details of why the man’s theology is clearly incorrect. But I have a feeling that if you are reading this, you are already formulating those thoughts on your own. I’d rather look into something else.
The girl hadn’t been listening to the man—she simply walked up, raised her hand, and asked “Why doesn’t Jesus love me?”
I have no way of knowing how she got the impression that Jesus didn’t love her based on her sexual orientation, but it couldn’t have been from Jesus’ own words. Scripture makes it very clear that Jesus loves everyone—He is love. She, therefore, could have only gotten that impression from those who call themselves Christians. Not just the berating, yelling man. Somehow, today, the church has allowed the myth of a hateful, spiteful God to be perpetuated to the extent that she, like most, thought that Jesus based His love on lifestyle or choices.
When I use the term “church,” I don’t mean the institution—I mean me. I mean you. I mean every individual who allows Jesus to be distorted into someone who died for some, not for all.
It is easy to look at the man’s response to the girl’s question as a tragedy. It is easy to find fault in what he did. It is far more difficult for me to look at myself and find fault for smaller, perhaps more unnoticeable things.
When the girl got up and left, I didn’t get up and walk over to her. I didn’t try to explain that the man was nuts. I didn’t try to show her who Jesus really was. I simply stood there amongst the crowd, silent.
What a tragedy.
“If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.” 1 John 4.20-21 (The Message)
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Thought provoking. Most of us Christians do a poor job of demonstrating Jesus’ Love. Do you see any positive examples?