Daddy-o is at it Again
Yesterday my dad made a presentation at the Covenant Network Conference in Cleveland. The Covenant Network is an advocacy group in the church that has been fighting for equality for gays and lesbians for quite a while.
While his speech was devoted to persuading the church, it touched on an issue that Tim and I were discussing a few weeks ago: Labels. When one labels them self (in my dad’s case, he had previously labeled himself a ‘Traditionalist’), it closes their eyes to all opposing viewpoints, and, in most cases, eradicates all willingness to learn and study any perspective besides the one that has been personally adopted.
Yes, labels are necessary in some cases, because they offer a sense of community and belonging (in my dad’s case, he labels himself ‘Christian’ and ‘Presbyterian’). However, it is important to recognize when labels are unnecessary, because they can often prevent us from learning. Here is an excerpt from my dad’s presentation where he illustrates his previous mistake:
“I started out very sure and very settled and very content with seeing exclusion as God’s will for the church. Like many, I had succumbed to the temptations of an ecclesiastical tunnel-vision: I read authors I agreed with. I talked with people I agreed with. I hung out with people I agreed with. I was exceedingly comfortable holding the position I did, I was supported in it, I was popular. And I had absolutely no reason to question any of it.But God had other plans. Out of the blue, opportunity opened up for serious conversation and friendship with some quite remarkable gay Christians. This was new for me. When you are a firebrand exclusivist, hurling thunderbolts and belching fire against the opposition, gay people with any sense tend to avoid your company, or at least they avoid telling you they are gay. As a result, what I knew about LGBT people was pretty much defined by the authors I agreed with, and flamboyant stereotypes presented in the media.
But suddenly here I was confronted with these new friends who were eager to talk about the faith, and almost miraculously willing to hang in there with me in conversations about the church’s teaching— this despite the fact that a lot of what they heard coming from me was unwittingly insulting or offensive. Their willingness to engage in frank conversation was a remarkable gift of grace, and the experience proved powerfully unsettling for two reasons. First, I started to realize the extent to which the church’s traditional teaching functioned like a sign over the door saying to gay people, “There is nothing here for people like you.” This was disturbing for a good evangelical like me who fervently believes that Jesus reaches out to everyone.
Even more unsettling was the fact that I wasn’t finding at all what I expected to find in these people. Let me talk about those expectations a bit, because this is where my comfortably settled convictions really started to crack.”
P. Mark Achtemeier
You can download the entire text here.
