The Great Homosexual Divide with Christianity

I recently linked on my Facebook wall this picture which shows a Christian on the sidelines of a gay pride parade with a sign saying, “I’m sorry how the church has treated you” beside him as he embraces one of the marchers.  Linking to this picture with the note, “Christians, have you hugged a gay guy today?” (which I meant to be an encouragement to reach out with love to others) triggered an onslaught of over 80 comments within a few hours, the most ever on my page to date.

I was surprised that so many of my Christian friends who know me well interpreted this post as some kind of message that I was condoning the gay lifestyle and preaching that the church should do the same. I felt a wave of persecution from my own brothers and sisters in the faith. One suggested real Christians should never attend gay pride parades and compared them to ‘murderer parades’ or ‘rapist parades’, yikes! Another suggested we shouldn’t hug homosexuals at a gay pride parade because they were blatantly living in sin with no repentance, as if you need to qualify for a hug. Many suggested the hug is ‘supporting their sin’ or that we should only love people that are ‘on the pathway out of their sin’. Another friend suggested hugging a gay person was the equivalent of trying to hug someone while they’re breaking in to your house with a gun trying to kill your family. Yep, that happened. The same person also said ‘Satan is smiling’ about my post. Another said Jesus didn’t go around hugging unclean sinners… really I’m not making this up!

The torrent of knee-jerk accusations, negativity, (many posts so over the top they had to be deleted and users blocked) and machine-gunning of Bible verses that followed left quite a pit in my stomach. It really helped me understand why so many gay people hate us so much.

I think it’s time for me to share the story of my Gay Controversy Ground Zero experience from 2006, the meteoric fall of Pastor Ted Haggard. I lived in Colorado at the time and my girlfriend-to-be-wife Melissa took me to New Life a few times to the young adults group there. It was a huge production that thousands attended every week with amazing music, great coffee and refreshments, cool lighting effects and videos, and all the glamour of a rock concert. One night the preaching was focused on dating, a favorite topic of mine with young adults, and the word brought that night really didn’t sit well with me as they were teaching a very humanistic trial-and-error, checklist selection approach to dating which is pretty much the opposite of how I believe we should find our soul mates… but that’s another blog for another day. About ¾ of the way through the message I couldn’t take it anymore and walked out into the New Life foyer feeling physically ill and heavy-hearted. I’m not an uber-spiritual, mystical guy, but I’ve had a couple times in my life I’ve clearly had “visions” while awake, and what follows is exactly what my mind saw in the empty grand foyer entrance of the church.

I looked up in the tall open room outside the main sanctuary and saw the huge banners with all the slogans, logos, and branding of the various ministries of the megachurch, and saw them all fall one by one into crumpled heaps on the ground. I then saw the large pillars holding up the tall ceilings begin to quake and tremble. I saw them crashing down like the whole structure collapsing right on the main entrance and bookstore area and moving inward. It was very vivid and troubling and I could barely walk for about 30 minutes it so moved me emotionally. I didn’t know what any of it meant but decided to put my attendance of this church on hold for awhile since I had at least enough discernment to realize, ‘something is not right here’.

Within a few weeks of this experience, the Denver radio stations and TV shows started to buzz with news that a male homosexual prostitute, Mike Jones, was claiming he had multiple sexual encounters with Senior Pastor at New Life, Ted Haggard. Mike had been paid by Ted for sex under a false name and  Mike saw Ted on TV one day and immediately recognized him. He said he wouldn’t have told anyone his secret if it weren’t for Ted’s public stances he kept taking against homosexuality on TV. He couldn’t stand the hypocrisy. The accusations were met with vehement denial, but as evidence began to mount to the contrary, Pastor Haggard finally confessed and shocked the nation. He was one of the biggest superstars in all of Christianity, a best-selling author, beloved pastor who oversaw the tremendous growth of one of the most successful churches in America, and was the current sitting-president of the National Evangelical Association.

Melissa and I decided to go back to New Life the next week after Pastor Haggard resigned to show support to our friends and colleagues that were very close to all the pastors there. The place was packed, and God’s presence was there at the service big time. It was actually a very moving, excellent show of solidarity from the congregation, but as I was leaving something kind of troubled me… I noticed all evidence of Pastor Ted’s existence was completely, 100% gone from the building.

The bookstore in the foyer had several entire aisles dedicated to his books, sermons, and audio series’ last time I was there, but not one shred of evidence remained. All his stuff was gone, as if his life’s work was suddenly invalid. I walked upstairs where there had previously been large posters lining a main hallway which prominently told the story of the Church’s history; a history which was very much interwoven with the story and images of Pastor Haggard. They were gone; replaced by cool artwork. All banners with his name or teachings were gone as well. I imagined church elders going around wearing chemical suits carrying huge biohazard trash bags throwing everything connected to Pastor Haggard in a big dumpster out back. It was like going to Microsoft HQ and finding no mention of Bill Gates, or Apple’s and being able to find no mention of Steve Jobs.

Unfortunately, I can fully understand how this all happened. A popular catch phrase among Evangelicals is ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’ (although this phrase is not in the Bible). This thought process focuses Christians on the snapshot of sinful behaviors of the lost that can easily be seen, rather than what we should be focused on by faith (Hebrews 11:1); God’s unseen plan of healing, restoration, and redemption for them. ‘Loving the sinner, hating the sin’ is a very carnal and judgmental way to view the world around you and gives you license to compartmentalize and segregate groups of people by their behavior. Christ died for all mankind and loves all humans so much he was willing to lay down his life for them, paying the price for every sin, and offering freely the gift of new life to all. (1 John 3:16, Romans 6:23)

It’s hard to love someone when you’ve given yourself license to hate their behavior. Gay people have their very identities wrapped around their gay lifestyle. Hating everything they do but saying you love them, does not a soul win. If you hate gayness, gay people will intuitively feel like you hate them personally. It’s as if you’re telling them the core of who they say they are is unacceptable to you, and to Christ’s Church, and they need not come around until they’ve got that behavior we hate stripped from their identity. Instead, we need to be finding things we love about that sinner, ways that we can relate from our own vast imperfect history and ways we’ve also struggled and failed. Maybe instead of going in with boxing gloves on ready to fight homosexuality, you should start witnessing by discussing something totally different God did in you and that He can do in them.

I rarely discuss homosexuality with a homosexual, it’s counterproductive, they’re ready for it, and they will close themselves off to you forever. Find something else to bless them with they’re not expecting. Maybe it’s a physical healing they need, a tangible gift, or a restored relationship with a loved one. We need to find the gold in them and call it forth with words of life. The Law of the Lord is written on the hearts of all men (Romans 2:15). It’s there already, engraved in our very DNA and consciences. If we speak love and life, building relationships founded on unconditional love of our gay friends, we can break down hard hearts so that Jesus may have a chance to enter and lovingly restore long-hidden truths, adopting them into the family the deepest part of them is aching for. If God can be made the author of their new faith, he promises he will be the perfecter. (Hebrews 12:2)

Many Christians claim they treat all sin the same, but our actions frankly don’t match our words. Jesus said, “But I tell you, that any of you that looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) I know MANY pastors that have struggled with pornography, lust, pre-marital sex, and adultery. In fact, anonymous polling of evangelical pastors has revealed some 30-40% of pastors are currently struggling with internet pornography. But the church is much more forgiving on such struggles than they are with homosexuality, and most of these pastors are able to fight through it, recover, and still faithfully complete the work God has for them. I’m convinced if Pastor Haggard had fallen to any of the former non-criminal sexual sins like internet porn, etc… that he would still be the Pastor of New Life today or at least have been able to step down in a healthy way, not completely scorched-earth stricken from memory as he was. The Church makes the stakes much, much higher with homosexuality. We make it impossible for pastors to be honest, hanging a sword over the head of anyone who is tempted by homosexuality. This gives Satan a great point of leverage against our leadership. If only he can plant the seed of homosexual lust in a church leader… if he can get any crack of the door opened to his heart… he can isolate, tend a garden of thoughts leading to secret actions without accountability.

The Church’s collective failure to properly relate to homosexuals outside and within our midst, has created a vast cultural chasm in America we must now fight to bridge. I believe the growing American homosexual subculture is being as poorly reached by Christians as any remote people group on the planet.  

An apology and a sincere hug is a great start. 

I’m not advocating acceptance of sin as “A-OK!”, nor am I advocating letting unrepentant homosexuals have open positions of authority over the church (as some denominations have in a foolish attempt to satisfy the devil of political correctness).

I’m suggesting we start with four commitments:

1. Reach out to homosexuals that have been hurt by the church with sincere unconditional love to engage them so they might get the chance to know us as people, not their caricatures or stereotypes of Christians, fostering relationships with them wherever they are, requiring nothing in return.
2. Talk about homosexuality from the pulpit without an “us vs. them” attitude, recognizing that it’s just one of many sexual sins, and that ALL of us struggle with some sort of sexual issues, heterosexual lust variants being even much more prominent. Let’s not treat homosexuality like it’s some special contagious disease we must keep away from.
3. Take the fight to a higher level. Our war is not against flesh and blood… (Eph. 6:12) Don’t always focus on confronting individuals about their sinful behaviors, rather, focus your energy on breaking down the invisible barriers and strongholds ruled by principalities of darkness, not men. Remember the battle is Spiritual AND Cultural.
4. Create a church culture of honesty and loving accountability for Pastors that may be struggling with homosexual temptation. Don’t assume someone is not struggling with it just because you’re not.  

Someone Believes in Me

God gave me an amazing woman. It takes a special kind of mettle to love a dream-chaser...

One of the most endearing of my wife’s many qualities is that she believes in me. She won’t let me settle for less than God’s best. I can look her in the eye and tell her my dreams without fear. She never sarcastically rolls her eyes as if to say “yeah…right…” She just asks, “How?” or “When?” When I fall short, she doesn’t hold it against me and encourages me to try again. When I succeed, she celebrates with me as I talk about the next dream.

These last 6 months have been unforgettable. I quit my job to chase a dream… took a 33% paycut and lost my benefits. I left a secure career in a down economy, where I was comfortably advancing in pay and rank to form a new startup company with several of my best friends. To top it off, we found out we were pregnant with our third child right after I made the switch. We’ve been squeaking by barely paying our bills as I work long hours trying to bring the company up long grueling hills to a place where we can finally introduce brand-new products to the consumer marketplace and finally attempt to make sales, cash flow, and maybe even profit.

Melissa has stood by me, encouraged me, and kicked me in the butt when I slowed down or slacked off. She’s been my sounding board and too often a vent for stresses and frustrations. You’re supposed to give your pregnant wife foot rubs and extra help around the house, but I’ve given her a lot of nights alone with the kids and never had much less to offer her and our sweet babies when I get home.

I’m on the plane coming back from a 10-day cross-country trip where I made my first sales. I have about 48 hours with her until my next trip, of which I’ll have to get some work done in between… but I am so excited to see her. I pray God can let me love her enough while I’m home to carry her through when I’m gone. I’ve spoken to her each of the last 10 days and she’s been awesome, loving, calm, encouraging, and peaceful. She’s matured so much the last few years… I used to always get in arguments on the phone with her when I traveled on business… just how the stress of separation manifested. But the Holy Spirit seems to be holding us both by the hands more and more, making us more aware of His presence and His grace in all things and all situations.  

Thank you God, and thank you Melissa. I love both of you more than words can say. I couldn’t do any of this without you two.

The Beauty and Diversity of the Bride of Christ

I was raised in a Southern Baptist church (nothing derogatory intended by pointing that out, just stating a fact). It was very formal and proper. We all kind of looked alike, dressed alike, behaved alike. The church services were absolutely the same every week. It was down to an exact science. We had a full orchestra and amazing music. It was like a little mini symphony concert every week with one good soloist singer and other hymns we all sang together. When the congregation sang, emphasis seemed to be on reading the correct words off the screens at the right time while simultaneously trying to be at the right pitch to match the orchestra. Sometimes God touched me and spoke to me through those hymns, but you'd never know it by looking as we weren't a very expressive bunch.

I distinctly remember where I was the moment I first saw someone raise their hands in worship. I was probably 12 years old or so. I was in the balcony next to several of my friends, and across on the other side of the sanctuary in the other balcony was this lady... I can still see her face. Her hair was fire red and long and poofy, just flowing everywhere. She had a look of complete bliss on her face, slightly tilted towards heaven with closed eyes. She lifted her right hand above her head cupping it slightly and palm facing outward, and as the music ebbed and flowed, her hand would move around and her face would contort in emotion. I remember the thoughts that entered my head, "what a showoff", "how embarrassing it must be for her husband", "what a faker", "why is she trying to bring so much attention to herself?", and "she should be ashamed behaving like that."

Looking back it is me who is ashamed of past thoughts. I didn't know how sinful my judgmental thoughts were as a young man. Praise God he has taken me so far. I laugh thinking of what I would have said had I seen how my future wife would behave in worship! Thank God He didn't give up on me.

I'm a man's man. I like guns and meat and football. I'm hairy. I like outdoor adventures. Dudes like me have a natural tendency to gravitate towards other manly men and sometimes have contempt for sensitive types of men or those with more refined, artsy, or even effeminate qualities. But there's something that happened to me that made me different. I met Jesus. Jesus is wonderful. He doesn't think like we do naturally. He sees people the way the Father sees them. The more you get to know Jesus and the more He gets hold of your heart, the more you will too. The Father loves everyone, and sent Jesus to die for all mankind. I'm still hairy and manly and love all the manly things, but my behavior has radically changed in how I see and treat others that aren't like me. I'm now mysteriously drawn to everyone that is different than me. I really have a heart for gay people. I love effeminate, artsy men that worship with reckless abandon. I really love black people that boldly don't hold anything back in church and can't help but loudly outburst and proclaim AMEN! and HALLELUJAH! to words of truth. I love meeting people from all different nations. At church I feel most connected to some of the people that are the most opposite of me. I'm thinking of a little old hispanic lady that was a new member about the same time as me at the church I currently attend... I can't see her without hugging her. She makes me smile so much... something about her sincere motherly spirit just touches me deeply. Christ has a way of crossing every boundary and tearing down every wall.

I was at a healing conference today, and I found myself just weeping for hours literally feeling empathy for those desperate and in need of major physical healing in their lives. This is because God is touching me again. He's showing me how much he loves the broken, the damaged, the blind, the mentally ill, the oppressed. I helped lead worship tonight and just felt overwhelmed by His goodness. I remember just singing out boldly, the fear of man and of not performing correctly just falling away as I sang... just utterly not caring what people thought about me, and able to cut loose and express by sound some of these deep things that needed to be expressed. I saw two men, middle-aged, bald, waving flags and dancing with abandon... and was just so touched by the beauty of their expression. They really blessed me with their extravagant worship and I sensed deeply how much the Father was pleased with all of His kids.

This is what Heaven will be like. This is "on Earth as it is in Heaven" stuff, right here, right now, for our enjoyment. So you can ridicule it, or you can join me and get over yourself, get over your religion, get past your biases, past your prejudices, and start trying to see people with the eye of Jesus. All colors, all nations, all tribes, all tongues, all types of people... everyone is welcome at God's table. There are enough seats for everyone.

Step out of your comfort zone a little today. Find someone to hug even if you're not a hugger. Find someone that rubs you the wrong way or offends you, and ask God to show you how He sees that person... the love He has for them, and you'll be amazed. You'll be changed too. Stop looking for the worst in people and start looking for the best in them. Thank God for the beautiful diversity of His bride.

Keep working on me Lord. Thanks for never giving up on me.

30 Day Juice Fast Journal- Day 13

I'm really pumped to see how many other people are giving this a try! I know of at least 5 folks that were at least partially inspired by my fast to do their own. That's really giving me strength and encouragement.

One of my best friends was in town this weekend and also juice fasting, so it was nice going to parties and restaurants and not being the only person fasting.

I've noticed food seems to come up in every conversation lately, and the social aspect of eating is one of the toughest parts of fasting. Food is just fun!

Morning of Day 13 I'm down to 197 (10 pounds lost since day 1). Weight seems to be lost in spurts, then level off for a few days, but I'm still averaging a little less than a pound a day.

I haven't been working out at all really, but I think I want to start incorporating some light workouts.

Getting a good night's sleep makes a tremendous difference on how I feel the next day. I went to bed early last night (finally), and felt 100% better than I did yesterday.

Here's my pictures from day 10. You can see I look a little less "swollen" than I did on day 1, but still have plenty of weight to lose.

30 Day Juice Fast Journal- Day 8

Overcoming Trials and Temptations

Morning of Day 8. Feeling good, but I haven't lost any weight the last 2-3 days, so that's kind of weird.

I faced some great temptation and discouragement the last 2 days between now and my morning of the 6th post.

My babies have been sick which is adding extra stress to the household. The night of the 6th I was feeling very down and hungry. I watched the kids for a couple hours that night to let Melissa escape out of the house for a little bit. I was feeding my 1-year old a tuna fish sandwich, tearing it up into little bits with my hands, and without thinking I licked my fingers... I was already wanting this sandwich, but when the little bit on my finger hit my taste buds, I nearly snapped. That's when it's hardest... nobody watching... tired... down... you can almost hear the little devil on your shoulder saying, "Just take a bite. Nobody will know! It won't hurt anything!" I'm convinced I would have fallen to this temptation if it wasn't for another friend of mine also juice fasting this month I knew I'd have to answer to, and my blog. Thankfully my friend gave me some encouragement by saying, "if you fail... I will fail too" and I stayed the path.

Accountability goes a long way. I've tried to do a few 30-day juice fasts the last 2 years, but I always seem to quit sometime in the day 3-10 window, but they were always pretty secret so I could quit without shame or accountability. I believe I will succeed this time.

Here are some tips for overcoming trials and temptations during a juice fast:

1) Fast with a close friend or spouse. Then you can push each other through the difficult moments.

2) Know when you feel like crap, it's only brief and temporary. Drink some juice, and go do something else. Don't dwell on it. Your mind will convince you this is how it's going to feel 24/7 till the end and you'll want to quit. That's a lie. You'll feel fine 90+ percent of the time you're fasting.

3) Know up front you will be offered free, delicious food EVERY DAY YOU FAST. It's just some crazy cosmic rule, but I've fasted many days and never had a single day where free, delicious food wasn't offered to me. So just smile and laugh at the cosmic joke, don't let it make you mad or frustrated. The free food offers will stop, as soon you stop fasting. =)

4) Don't chew gum, and don't go shoving your nose into food trying to inhale the smells and get some satisfaction. Don't give your body hope that it's going to eat. This will only keep your digestive system on longer. You'll feel best once your digestive system shuts down and gives up.

5) Pray. Pray often.

6) Read the Bible. Read books. There's more to the Word of God being called the Bread of Life than you think. It does have a magical way of being able to satisfy, even your physical body. Try it.

7) Think of your juice as your food. That way it's less awkward when you go to restaurants or talk to people who don't know you're fasting. That way, if you've juiced earlier, you can honestly just say, "No thanks, I already ate. I'll just have a water." and don't have to go into the whole juice fasting explanation spiel with everyone.

8) Find other social activities that don't revolve around food. Eating is our #1 social activity, so you get very socially isolated when you fast.

30 Day Juice Fast Journal- Day 6

Quick Update- Things are going well. I'm losing a pound a day exactly. I feel like I'm over the initial shock now and am cruising along nicely. I really WANT to eat, but I'm now feeling like I don't NEED to eat.

Here's a couple recipes I wanted to share:

1/2 Cantaloupe, take the seeds out, leave the rind on 4 out of every 5 slices. Amazing. Also works with honeydew. The rind gives you chlorophyll and green goodness but it still tastes like regular cantaloupe. This recipe also works with honeydew and other melons. Watermelon is not that great juiced unless you only leave the rind on abour 1/3 of all pieces you put in. 

4-5 apples, 2-3 celery sticks, handful of spinach, and 1/4 lemon. This tastes kind of like lemonade and you'll never even taste the greens hidden in it.

30-Day Juice Fast Journal- Day 1

I was inspired by the documentary, "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" to do a 30-day Juice Fast. I will be blogging periodically (no, not every day, but when I get a second here or there) about it to create some accountability and also hopefully inspire others to give it a try.

First, a little background on me: This isn't my first juice fast. I grew up the middle, short, chubby kid out of 3 brothers. I was always pretty athletic and coordinated and did okay in sports, but I just carried too much weight. I grew up eating way too many burgers, pizza, fried chicken, fried everything, huge quantities, cokes, very little water. Even when I worked out every day and played sports, I still carried at least 30 pounds unnecessarily. My brothers are the opposite of me and can eat unlimited food it seems and still have six-pack abs. I on the other hand developed hypoglycemia (I eventually overcame this condition) and struggled with blood sugar and diet. My brothers and I have very different metabolisms and genetics it seems, but I take full responsibility for me being out of shape. 

Everything changed in the fall of 2002. My sophomore year of college, I was on an internship in Hereford, TX and started learning about juice fasting. I had tried to fast before on just water, but could never make it a single day without having a blood sugar crash, getting shaky, and needing to eat by dinner time. I read a book called "Juice Fasting and Detoxification" by Steve Meyerowitz, and finally got the courage to give juice fasting a try. My first successful juice fast was 42 days. It was an incredible physical and spiritual experience. I was never healthier than during my long juice fast, and came out of it a new person. I started at a robust 200+ pounds, and 42 days later recorded my lowest weight since a pre-teen of 154. You immediately gain about 7 pounds once you have food in your digestive system again, then I gained back some muscle and stabilized at a healthy 165-175 (pretty much my ideal weight range) and was able to stay trim and fit for 5-6 years after that. This was the only span of my life where I was not chubby. I fell in love with my wife Melissa in 2006, got married in 2007, and we had our first daughter in 2008. As my happiness and comfort grew, I got a good-paying desk job and slowly gained about a pound a month the last three years and settled into a more sedentary lifestyle. Now I'm back over 200, and don't like what I've become physically. I feel like I've put back on the shell of my old, inferior-self, and this isn't who I'm supposed to be anymore. I refuse to live a life with only a few fleeting years of fitness.

My plan now is to do another reboot of my body. Today, September 1st, was day 1 of a planned 30 days. This month I will only have water and fresh-juiced fruits and veggies. 

As I go through this journey, I will be sharing recipes, tips, pictures, triumphs and struggles and hope to give insight into the amazing world of juice fasting.

It's 10PM on day one. So far so good. I'm hungry and have a dull headache. My stomach is growling. I've had three cups of juice today and was able to have a pretty productive day at work. The first few days are the toughest. I stopped drinking soda and coffee about 5 days ago and am still having caffeine withdrawals. I'm looking forward to getting some sleep, so I'm going to turn in for the night and pick this journal back up later.

Day 1 Pictures @207lbs (I will take pics in the same spot with the same now-too-tight-shirt throughout the fast)

 And here's me at a fit 165 circa 2003 for comparison's sake.