If/Then on Christian Responsibility in Orlando

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== 1 ==

If:

  • Martin Luther King, Jr, was correct when he said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Then:

  • Racism anywhere is a threat to people of minority races everywhere.
  • Sexism anywhere is a threat to women everywhere.
  • Homophobia anywhere is a threat to LGBTQ persons everywhere.

== 2 ==

If:

  • Homophobia anywhere is a threat to LGBTQ persons everywhere.

Then:

  • Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in Islam is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Muslim.
  • Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in Christianity is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Christian.
  • Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in major denominations of Christianity, including The United Methodist Church, is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Methodist.

== 3 ==

If:

  • Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in major denominations of Christianity, including The United Methodist Church, is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Methodist.

Then:

  • The Church contributes to the climate of “othering” of LGBTQ persons by saying they are “incompatible” with Christian Teaching in ways that straight people are not.
  • The Church bears reflection for how its policies and practices do harm to people outside their sphere of responsibility.
  • The Church is complicit in how its policies and practices affect the culture around people outside of the Church.

== 4 ==

If:

  • The Church is complicit in how its policies and practices affect the culture around people outside of the Church.

Then:

  • The Church has its moral obligation: To say violence against sexual minorities is never acceptable, to classify such things on the same category as violence against women and ethnic minorities, and to repent of its sin in inadvertently enabling such violence.
  • The Church has its unique opportunity: The intersections of LGBTQ and gun violence require a holistic approach across multiple diverse contexts, which is where the Church is already, so we can lead the way to study and stop it through listening and advocacy.
  • The Church has its call: to remove its own policies against LGBTQ persons and stop the practices that harm LGBTQ persons, for the sake of their very lives and our own doctrinal and missional integrity.

== 5 ==

If:

  • You are offended by the implication above that Christianity in general, and The United Methodist Church in particular, bears responsibility for the actions of a Non-Christian man who shot 100 LGBTQ persons and friends in Orlando.
  • You are offended by the politicizing of a tragedy in order to call for change in a seemingly unrelated field of concern.

Then:

  • Your responsibility is to talk to LGBTQ persons and ask them if the Church contributes to these situations and how the politicizing of LGBTQ persons’ entire lives is done everyday.
  • Your responsibility is to research how many LGBTQ teenagers experience homelessness because their parents are Christian.
  • Your responsibility is to refute the claim that the Church can stand with integrity against violence towards women and ethnic minorities, but it cannot stand the same way against violence towards LGBTQ persons, whom it renders in a different category through sanctioned polity and practice even as it claims “homosexual persons are of sacred worth.”
  • Your responsibility is to say “I’m sorry” more than “It’s not my fault” today. I will practice this as well.

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Thoughts?

The Rev. Jeremy Smith serves as minister of discipleship for First United Methodist Church in Portland, Ore. He blogs at Hacking Christianity, from which this essay is republished with the author's permission.