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Not so very long ago in lands across the sea and
indeed, in this very country, the Christian Church used the Bible to justify
discrimination. It used the Bible to prevent the ordination of women. It
used the Bible to prevent women from gaining their right to vote. It used the
Bible to support kidnap, torture and death by promoting slavery as a holy
cause.
It wasn’t until certain individuals – both
Christian and non-Christian – stood up to declare that the Church was
wrong in using Biblical scriptures in this way, that these injustices were
eventually brought to an end. Brought to an end because right-thinking
and thoughtful people of goodwill realised that the Bible was being used
incorrectly; they realised that the way in which certain scriptures were
being used to justify these acts of alienation, suppression and violation
was not only wrong, but was also violently opposed to the message that
Jesus came to reveal to all people – a message of love, acceptance and
welcome.
Today we are rightly aghast at how these
things could possibly have been supported and justified by the Christian
Church through such appalling Biblical interpretation. We are shocked and
shamed by the actions of a church towards people it has been charged, by
Christ himself, to care for. But we rejoice that these injustices have
been, and are continuing to be, put right.
And yet some Christians within some churches
still continue to use the Bible to support a particular prejudice. They
use various scriptures, out of context and out of cultural relevance, to
discriminate against certain people from within their own communities and,
indeed, from within their own churches.
I am referring to the fact that they use the
Bible to support prejudice against lesbians, gay men, bisexual and
transgendered people. Metropolitan Community Church believes this to be
wrong, unjust and unbiblical.
And so we want to start a discussion by
asking the question today, ‘Would Jesus Discriminate?’
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We believe that most people, when asked
‘Would Jesus Discriminate?’ would instinctively answer, “No!” However, we
live in an age when many churches around the world are actually leading
the effort to deny gay and transgender people equal protection under the
law and access to their God.
Currently, the Anglican Church in Nigeria is
rigorously trying to deny gay men and lesbians access to God and to basic
human rights. In Jamaica gay people receive no protection from the church
or the state, with homophobic murder often going unpunished.
Because so many churches around the world,
including churches in this country, continue to invoke the name of Jesus
to justify their assault on the human and spiritual rights of gay and
transgender people, we feel it is important to invite thoughtful people
everywhere to consider, What would Jesus do? And we believe that the
answer is not so very hard to find.
One of the themes of Jesus’ ministry was a
recurring conflict with the Pharisees, a powerful group of legalistic
religious leaders. The Pharisees were waiting for the Messiah to come –
someone they believed would deliver them from Roman rule – and they
believed that this would happen only when their entire nation became
righteous. So, as far as they were concerned, anyone who failed to follow
their own particular set of rigid rules was bringing a curse down on their
nation and was therefore worthy of contempt. The Pharisees despised those
who were ill, the poor, women, tax collectors, Roman soldiers and the
Samaritans who were considered to be religious heretics. But Jesus
refused to be bound by cultural and religious prejudice by purposefully
going out of his way to include and welcome these so-called despised
people in his life. He repeatedly took up the cause of the oppressed and
defended them against the narrow-minded religious leaders. Unfortunately,
the Church has often failed to live up to the example set by Jesus,
misusing the Bible to justify discrimination and acting more like those
Pharisees than followers of Jesus.
We, in Metropolitan Community Churches
believe there is another way – a way made real by Jesus’ life and example
and teaching.
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If we are to stop religious discrimination,
then we have to get to the core beliefs and the specific issues that
underpin prejudice. We have to reveal that there is a viable alternative
to the traditional negative biblical interpretations. That is why we feel
compelled to ask, ‘Would Jesus Discriminate?’ and to ask every thoughtful
Christian – indeed, every thoughtful person – whether the mistakes made
over the oppression of women and the promotion of slavery are not actually
being repeated now with gay and transgender people.
It is a very great sadness to me that there
are many people in our community who believe a lie. They believe that God
hates them. In response to this lie, we wish to call upon Christians of
goodwill to have the courage to follow the example of Jesus and to take a
number of steps to end the Church’s history of alienating gay and
transgender people.
Put simply, we believe that we must renew
our commitment to honesty. We believe that we must educate ourselves by
daring, like Jesus before us, to become genuine friends of gay and
transgender people. We believe that we must carefully re-examine what the
Bible says about same-sex relationships. We believe that we must stop
using laws and ambiguous scriptural texts to hurt gay and transgender
people.
And so today, we call upon spiritual and
political leaders to work publicly for an end to identity-motivated
discrimination and violence. We call upon people of goodwill to speak out
on behalf of all people whose lives are marginalised and jeopardised by
hatred, bigotry and sometimes, even, violence.
We, the people of Metropolitan Community
Church, wish to stand with Jesus in defence of those who feel they are not
lovable; who feel they are not able to be themselves; who are not being
extended the unconditional love, acceptance and welcome of Jesus – and we
invite you to join us as we strive to live out the good news – the Good
News of Jesus Christ!
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