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Character Still Matters More Than Winning

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For years, I’ve struggled to put my finger on why I’ve been so intuitively disconnected from my Republican Party. Yes, to the shock of many, I am still registered in the GOP. But if I’m frank about the whole thing, I’ve always been more concerned with how the “upside-down and backwards way of Jesus” intersects with the messy world we live in than with the political parties themselves. My ballot is shaped less by loyalty to a particular political ideology and more by my attempt to discern how the Sermon on the Mount can inform public policy for all who bear the image of God.

Nonetheless, my disheartenedness with the Grand Ol’ Party has only grown over the last decade. So I’ve continued to churn on why. Why am I so outside of the tribe I was once in? What shifted? What were the policy issues? And it finally dawned on me:

I never became a Republican primarily because of the platform or a set of policies. It was for one reason only: character first.

Like many evangelicals of my generation, I had certain issues that mattered deeply to me. But what first drew me to the GOP in my twenties was a conviction I heard repeated over and over again: character counts. In fact, character was presented as the nonstarter for all leadership.

The message was clear. A candidate could have all the right policies, all the right positions, and all the right promises, but if they lacked proven character, they were unfit to lead – hard stop. Character was the fault line, the watershed issue, and the non-negotiable standard that could not be compromised.

Going a step further, I believed the primary process existed, in part, to protect that conviction. “We the people” of the “character-first party” would never allow someone who might undermine this stalwart value to become our candidate. Character was not simply an issue among many. It was the foundation beneath all the others; without it, we labor in vain – or worse, for our vanity.

Now I’m in my mid-fifties. And over the last decade, I have watched that conviction steadily erode.

What has surprised me most is not simply that character has become an elective rather than a compulsory standard regarding leadership, but also how often its absence is excused. And all for what? For policy gains? For political victories? For social change? For fiscal responsibility? To combat the left? The culture? The uncertainty of the future?

I often hear, “Yeah, but the character of the opposition on the left is _____________!” (fill in the blank). As though the new standard is that character no longer matters, so long as the other side is worse. But that was never the principle I thought we were advancing. If character truly matters, it must matter even when it costs us something. It must matter even when it means losing. Otherwise, character is not a conviction. It’s just a platitude.

Personally, I would rather lose while upholding the belief that character matters than win by convincing myself that poor character is tolerable if I can hold my nose long enough. Credibility is lost the moment we excuse in our own leaders the very things we once – oftentimes still – condemned in others.

Unfortunately, the result has been a seismic shift. We once argued that a good leader must first be a good person. Increasingly, we seem to argue that effectiveness matters more than integrity, strength more than goodness, winning more than virtue. And every time the absence of character succeeds, it only proves the point more. Maybe character never really mattered after all.

And that’s the hinge on which my disheartened soul swings.

For me, that is the sole – and soul – great loss. Not political accountability but moral credibility.

I joined a party that once insisted character was essential to leadership. Today, it is often treated as incidental. Which then sacrifices credibility.

And when credibility is lost, it is notoriously difficult to recover.

And when character no longer commands respect, power is often used to do what integrity once did.

And when the carrot of character is proven to be optional, the stick of control is reached for as the most effective substitute.

And when this happens, the cycle can only spin downward because we don’t require anything different except more of the same.

Yet, I still believe what I was taught all those years ago. Character matters. It matters in our homes, churches, businesses, communities, and especially in our politics. Wise policy matters. Competence matters. But character matters most. Character is still first.

Maybe that’s why I’ve felt politically homeless. Not because I care most about politics, but because I’ve always believed character comes before politics. And perhaps more tragically along the way, I’ve watched much of my evangelical tribe trade away its witness and moral credibility for the idols of political power, certainty, and victory. Things the Scriptures would call the spirits of the age.

Personally, I would rather lose while preserving character than win by excusing it away. Why? Because when we abandon our own standards, the world takes notice. But when we hold to them no matter the cost, they notice that too.

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The Southern Baptists May Have Just Banned More Than Women Pastors.

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I am a graduate of a Southern Baptist Seminary, but I am not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). So my thoughts come from an outsider perspective, but an adjacent one.

The SBC has once again moved to canonize its position that women should not be called pastors and should not teach men in gathered church settings. While many within the SBC view this as a necessary defense of biblical faithfulness, I find myself drawn to a broader concern than the specific conclusion.

My concern here is not primarily about where one lands on women serving as pastors, though I do have a primary interest in that bigger question. My concern is what happens when a denomination takes a debated question and attempts to permanently settle it for future generations through constitutional force.

History suggests that rarely ends well. Trust me, I have been on the receiving end of canonized denominational dogma.

The reality is that theology is not static. The Scriptures do not change, but our understanding of them often does. Christians today understand many passages differently than believers did centuries ago. We have access to ancient documents, inscriptions, papyri, and linguistic discoveries that previous generations never possessed. Scholars continue to sharpen our understanding of Greek grammar, Hebrew idioms, ancient cultural practices, and the meaning of words within their original contexts.

In my own three decades of studying the Scriptures, I have watched discoveries in linguistics and the ancient world overturn interpretations that many Christians once considered permanently settled. Some understandings stood virtually unquestioned for centuries, only to be reconsidered when new evidence, better lexical data, or broader manuscript discoveries provided a clearer picture of how words and phrases were actually being used in the first century. What was once presented as certainty are now shown to hang there with a level of ambiguity. What was once considered obvious sometimes became more nuanced.

That does not mean the text changes. It means our understanding improves. The history of biblical scholarship is filled with examples of interpreters revisiting long-held conclusions in light of better information. Humility requires us to acknowledge that future generations may see things more clearly than we do, just as we sometimes see things more clearly than those who came before us. It is nothing less than hubris to believe that our generation, in one small nook of the historic and universal Church, stuck the landing for all time on a theological topic.

The church has always been learning.

This should not frighten us. It should humble us.

Every generation inherits the responsibility of wrestling honestly with the Scriptures. Every generation must ask whether long-held interpretations accurately reflect what the biblical authors intended to communicate.

But when a denomination effectively declares that future generations may not revisit a question, it risks forcing tomorrow’s church into yesterday’s debates. Instead of preserving unity, such actions often guarantee future division. The fact that the SBC has disaffiliated churches over this one issue while remaining aligned on virtually every other major theological conviction reveals just how elevated a traditionally secondary issue has become.

Yet, tragically, church history is full of examples.

And, the irony is that many of the people who now insist that the question is settled belong to traditions that were themselves born from challenging settled interpretations.

What especially concerns me is the way this conversation is often framed. Increasingly, the debate is presented as a choice between being conservative or liberal, faithful or progressive, biblical or compromised. It’s loaded as a clear and present danger, with dog-whistle nomenclature, before it’s openly and sincerely investigated.

However, many conservative scholars, pastors, and churches affirm the authority of the Scriptures, reject progressive theology, and still reach different conclusions regarding women serving in leadership roles, holding ecclesial titles, teaching in church services, and influencing the direction of the church alongside men. They do not see their position as a concession to culture. They see it as an attempt to faithfully interpret the relevant texts.

One may disagree with their conclusions. One may even strongly disagree. But to reduce the discussion to “conservative versus liberal” is to replace exegesis with tribalism.

What makes this framing especially dangerous is that it creates a false measuring stick for future generations since the question quietly shifts from “What do the Scriptures teach?” to “What kind of church are you?”

Once that happens, the debate is no longer merely about interpretation. It becomes about identity. And yes, identity politics is as much, if not more, a feature of evangelicalism as any left-wing social group.

Tragically, then, if a church appoints a woman as a pastor or elder, many will no longer ask how that church arrived at its conclusion. They will simply assume the church has become compromised. The label arrives before curiosity or conversation ever begins.

But reality is even far more complicated than that.

One may disagree with those conclusions. But it is simply inaccurate to suggest that every church with women pastors or elders has abandoned a conservative hermeneutic. Many churches arrive at different conclusions while still approaching Scripture with a high view of its authority and a serious commitment to careful exegesis.1

When the labels “liberal” vs. “conservative” become the framework (did you know those words are not in the Scriptures as virtues or vices), the issue becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Instead of allowing the Scriptures to drive the discussion, we let political and tribal categories determine which conclusions are permissible before the study even begins. The category becomes the argument.

The result is a dismissive “or” where there may actually be room for an “and.”

Conservative and open to women serving in leadership.

Committed to the authority of the Scriptures and persuaded by a different interpretation of several contested passages.

Whether one agrees with those positions is not the point. The point is that these combinations exist. Once we deny that reality, we stop evaluating interpretations on their biblical merits and start evaluating them according to which tribe they appear to strengthen or threaten.

That is not theological discernment. It is boundary maintenance.

And history suggests that whenever tribal identity takes precedence over careful interpretation, the church inevitably pays a price.

The moment a position is declared invalid simply because it falls on the wrong side of a doctrinal, political, or cultural binary, the discussion has ceased to be primarily about the Scriptures.

Ironically, this is its own form of undermining the very Scriptures groups claim to protect. Whereas liberalism tends to extract texts from the Scriptures, legalism tends to inject more than is there. Yet, legalism is not merely adding rules. It is also the tendency to create boundaries that prevent faithful believers from honestly wrestling with the text. It occurs whenever institutional certainty begins to outrun biblical debate.

The issue becomes even more complicated when we remember how rarely the word “pastor ” actually appears in the New Testament. The term is surprisingly rare. The vast majority of leadership discussions focus on elders, overseers, shepherds, teachers, apostles, prophets, and deacons.

Yet modern church structures often import assumptions about the pastoral office that would have been foreign to the first century. To make the title pastor the defining line of orthodoxy seems particularly precarious when the New Testament itself places so little emphasis on the title.

This is one reason I worry that the SBC’s decision reflects something larger than careful interpretation. It may also reflect the cultural moment. Dog, meet your already wagging tail.

We are living through an era shaped by reactions against wokeness, identity politics, and broader cultural shifts regarding gender. Some of those reactions are understandable. Some are even necessary.

But every generation has blind spots.

Every generation is tempted to mistake its cultural battles for biblical battles.

The church should always ask whether it is defending the Scriptures or simply baptizing the anxieties of its own age.

Future generations will inevitably revisit these questions. They always do. The question is not whether future generations will revisit this issue. The question is whether we will leave them room to do so. Will they inherit a framework that encourages careful study and humble dialogue, or one that forces them into another painful denominational fight?

At Redemption Church, we are currently investigating this question ourselves. We have not treated the matter as settled merely because others have. Nor have we assumed that newer conclusions are necessarily better than older ones.

When I drafted our founding documents fifteen years ago, I can guarantee that I was shaped by a host of factors. Some were reactive. We were coming out of a four-year challenge within an egalitarian denomination. Some were dogmatic. At the time, I was becoming decidedly more Calvinistic, due in no small part to my reaction against that same dastardly Arminian denomination. And some influences, in hindsight, have proven far less healthy than I recognized at the time. The cool cowboy Calvinism and complementarianism of the era—Acts 29, James MacDonald, Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll, and others—shaped my perspectives then, as they did for many evangelical leaders of my generation. Perspectives that we are all now critiquing.

The reality is that none of us interpret Scripture or formulate theology in a vacuum. We are all shaped, to varying degrees, by our experiences, our reactions, our cultural climate, and the zeitgeist of our age. That does not mean our conclusions are necessarily wrong. It simply means we should approach them with a measure of humility. And it is precisely why there should always be room to wrestle, revisit, and reexamine our assumptions in the light of Scripture.

So, like my sophomore algebra teacher always said, it’s time to check our work. And as I’ve done that, I’ve found things I said and wrote years ago that I no longer believe are as clear or in alignment with the Scriptures as I once thought.

Thus, we are attempting to listen carefully to the Scriptures, to church history, to the best scholarship available, and to one another.

Where that process ultimately leads remains to be seen.

But I am convinced of this:

The church is healthiest when it approaches difficult questions with humility rather than certainty, with curiosity rather than fear, and with confidence that truth has nothing to fear from honest investigation.

The Scriptures have survived every generation’s questions.

They do not need protection from careful study.

They need people willing to study them carefully.

  1. As a sidebar, I do believe the label “conservative hermeneutic” can sometimes hinder authentic Scriptural study. It subtly introduces a predetermined expectation that the text must be read in a particular way before the investigation even begins. Ideally, our first commitment should not be to reading Scripture conservatively or progressively, but to reading it honestly and allowing the text to challenge our assumptions wherever it leads. But that is a different discussion for a different day. ↩︎
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Let’s Talk About Orthodoxy, Unorthodoxy, & Heresy Pt. 1

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This topic has swirled around in my mind ever since I took a seminary class on the evolution of theology in church history. Not church history, but how different doctrines rose and fell and divided Christianity into thousands of factions over 2000 years. It was perhaps the only class I found to be truly novel, and surprisingly honest about the inconsistent and messy business of practicing theology (see “practicing” here in the same way you would see practicing medicine, it’s important, but not always as certain or settled as we like to believe). The gaping hole in the course is that it quickly diverged to only track doctrinal development in the western church of Catholics and eventually Protestants, which automatically cuts out a full 1/3 of historic Christianity, but it was still eye-opening.   

While a number of things have prompted me to begin this series lately, a headline I came across this week finally made me pull the trigger. The headline read, “Kirk Cameron’s Position on Hell Is ‘Unorthodox’ but Not ‘Heresy,’ Says Apologist Wesley Huff.”  Now, my point here isn’t to get into the weeds of that discussion in this installment. Rather, I think it’s interesting that somehow Wes Huff, whom I appreciate, especially for his sometimes surprising candor regarding the overstated facts by conservative apologists on manuscript transmission and textual criticism, has become the voice of pronouncing what is orthodox, unorthodox, heterodox (I left this one out of the title – too wordy), or heretical (see below for a definition of each).

Here is why this type of assessment has always sat uneasily with me. The challenge with declarations about what constitutes orthodoxy or heresy is that there is no transcendent, divinely inspired rulebook that draws clear lines for all Christians as people wrestle with the implications of Scripture. Terms like orthodoxy, unorthodoxy, heterodoxy, and heresy often exist in the eye of each group’s doctrinal beholder. Thus, they are human assessments, yet often presented as divine declarations.

For example, the Protestant “orthodoxy” of salvation by grace through faith alone is deemed a damnable “heresy” by the Catholic Church, as articulated at the Council of Trent. The same holds in reverse in the polemical writings of the Reformers and in confessional statements such as the Augsburg Confession. So one group’s orthodoxy becomes another group’s heresy. But in the end, it is still people rendering judgments about other people, arguing from the same Bible through differing dogmatic paradigms.

The same could be said of original sin. The Eastern Orthodox Church, one of the oldest expressions of Christianity, regards the Augustinian view of original sin as a heretical error (they use different terminology, but the idea is the same) and not represented in apostolic teaching. Personally, my issue with Augustine is that I find him more informed by Stoic-Platonism than Judaism, but I digress. Anyway, if you trace Augustine’s reasoning for the version of original sin he promoted (see especially City of God XIV), it is rooted in the idea that Adam’s first sin, after eating the fruit, was an involuntary erection. Yes, you read that right.

Augustine believed that before the fruit, Adam and Eve possessed perfect rational control over their bodies. Bodily functions, including sexual arousal, were fully subject to the will, and sexual union occurred calmly, deliberately, and with reason over passion. After sin, such mastery was shattered, and libido took charge. For Augustine, the first experiential consequence of Adam’s sin was the emergence of bodily movements that no longer obeyed rational command. The most vivid and humiliating example of this loss of mastery was involuntary sexual arousal. Adam felt lust for his wife, had an involuntary erection, and acted on both. From this, shame follows immediately, hence Adam and Eve covered their nakedness.

Thus, his conclusion – from this wildly Freudian speculation (see his Confessions, especially books II, III, VI, and VIII to get perhaps the real genesis of his take on Genesis) – was that original sin is transmitted through sex. I have seen some reading into the white lines between verses, but this is as bad as the time I heard a pastor tell people to write the word “Rapture” in the white space between Revelation 3 and 4, a book of the Bible that literally warns of judgment on anyone who “adds to or takes away from the words of its prophecy.” Yet this is the genesis of our Western orthodoxy, which in the East is regarded as heresy.

I say all of this simply as a reminder that while we may use categories like orthodox, unorthodox, heterodox, or heretical, these labels do not speak for God with the level of certainty they sometimes imply. They function more as internal tribal benchmarks set by one community to caution against what they perceive as doctrinal error in another, and often rush to “we are extremely right = orthodox” and “you are extremely wrong = heretical.” This, in and of itself, should give us pause, given how much theological evolution has occurred over 3500 years of Scriptural interpretation and wrestling. Besides, we Protestants are the Johnny-come-latelys after all.  

So to conclude Part One, let’s end by defining the terms, which I am sure some people will push back on because, well, that is the very point I am making about there being no single papal voice that defines everything for everyone. But I have to offer something. Then, in Part Two, we will dive deeper into how to navigate these trigger words and how to better measure the merits behind their use.

Orthodox: Beliefs, teachings, or practices that align with the accepted, official, or historically affirmed doctrine of a particular religious tradition.

Nuance: Considered “right belief” (from Greek orthos = straight or right, doxa = belief or opinion). Functions as the doctrinal center or boundary marker. What counts as orthodox depends on the group (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc.).

In short: Inside the group’s doctrinal fence, but with points that sometimes differ from those of other groups. Usually, fine-tuning subcategories beyond the historic Christian Creed.

Unorthodox: Beliefs or views that differ from standard or traditional doctrine but are not necessarily condemned.

Nuance: Can be innovative, speculative, or unconventional. May raise eyebrows but not alarms. Often tolerated as minority opinions, theological exploration, or non-essential disagreements.

In short: Outside the norm of the group, but not against the historic Christian Creed.

Heterodox: Beliefs that deviate from established orthodoxy in more serious or substantive ways, though not always formally condemned.

Nuance: From Greek heteros, meaning other or different. Seen as doctrinally problematic or theologically risky. May conflict with core teachings but stop short of outright denial of essential doctrines. Often used in academic or ecumenical dialogue.

In short: Significantly off-center of the group, concerning but not universally rejected by the historic Christian Creed.

Heresy: Beliefs or teachings that directly contradict essential, defining doctrines of a faith and are formally rejected or condemned by that tradition.

Nuance: Denies or distorts core tenets (for example, the Trinity or the divinity of Christ in historic Christianity, think contrary to the Nicene Creed). Historically, subject to church discipline, excommunication, or conciliar condemnation. From Greek hairesis, meaning “choice” or “sect,” later used for a divisive doctrinal faction.

In short: Outside the historic Christian fence entirely that all groups universally see as the center.

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My Burden And Motivation As An Evangelical Pastor: Tending To Our Logs Before “Their” Specks Regarding Culture, Politics, and Partisanship.

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I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and in light of some recent commentary, I thought it might be helpful to lay out my thoughts and motivations for why I address the issues I do and the topics I tend to engage, be it on social media, my blog, or my podcast, The Everyday Missionary. I refrain from most of this on Sundays, on purpose, because my objectives and audience there are more nuanced than on other platforms of communication. Quite honestly, the people who make up Redemption Church already tend to get what I am getting at, which is why I use other forums as supplementation. They are a truly remarkable community, and I am deeply grateful to be a part of it.

Now, this is by no means exhaustive and, in the interest of brevity, will inevitably rely on some caricature, but I hope it offers a basic sense of what I’m trying to communicate—or perhaps more accurately, why I choose to communicate about the things I do.

In my casual observation, there are three general postures I see among my fellow evangelical pastors when it comes to how they use their position and platform.

First, there are those who generally choose to stay out of the fray when it comes to policy, politics, and culturally sensitive matters. The benefit of this posture is that it often avoids criticism from either side since the focus is simply on spiritual stuff. The downside, however, is that it can miss meaningful opportunities to connect Jesus and Scripture to real-life situations, areas where both are well equipped to speak with wisdom and conviction. I sincerely don’t fault this position, and quite honestly which I felt I could take that track. It would make my life a whole lot more peaceful.

Second, there are those who engage very directly by calling out what they perceive as the sins of groups they view as unsaved, morally compromised, or not as doctrinally aligned as their tradition asserts. This often includes sharp critiques of cultural movements and political positions associated with the Left or progressive causes. The strength of this approach is that it resonates deeply with a significant portion of the evangelical base and is frequently affirmed as courageous truth-telling. It’s also the fastest way to build an audience. The cost, however, is that it can leave those being addressed feeling judged or even disliked by people who claim to follow Jesus—the same Jesus who, in the Gospels, seemed to genuinely enjoy, love, and befriend those on the margins or those with complicated, messed-up, scandalous lives.

Within this posture, I also observe a considerable investment of energy in defending evangelicalism, its partisan alignments, and particularly its close relationship with the current administration’s evangelical political ecosystem. What often proves more difficult is a willingness to acknowledge or repent of our own inconsistencies, blind spots, and failures. As a pastor, I regularly encounter people who are genuinely curious about Jesus, yet hesitant or resistant because of the way His name has been publicly represented among some of these groups. I wish I could take this road; I imagine my podcast would be larger. But for reasons that will soon be apparent, my conscience will not permit it.

Third, there are those like myself, an evangelical speaking to evangelicals, about cultural evangelicalism. Those who are more concerned with addressing the log within evangelicalism than the speck they see in the broader culture. This posture echoes the prophets, who consistently called Israel to account for failures of mercy, justice, and faithfulness to God’s heart for the nations. It also reflects the ministry of Jesus, who spoke far more often about the hypocrisy of God’s people than about the moral failures of Rome. The downside here is that this approach rarely earns affirmation from one’s own evangelical tribe, and as Scripture itself asserts, it does not often find a warm welcome. It also doesn’t tend to draw an audience as much as ire. And yet, as the apostle reminds us, “judgment begins with the house of God.” Unfortunately for me, this is what the Spirit has placed on me as my burden.

In my own context of the Pacific Northwest, I feel a burden to reach people whom I often see the broader evangelical world either belittling or fighting—frequently over specks—while overlooking our own planks. Yet, the apostle warns more sharply against the religious self-righteousness of Romans 2 than the pagan excesses of Romans 1, concluding with the haunting indictment, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles (disbelievers/deconstructors/nones/I love Jesus but not the Church-ers/I just can’t do it any more-ers) because of you.” Therefore, for me, this is not about equal time or political balance between left and right. It is about addressing what I believe is a harmful “lampstand stripping” trend within evangelicalism, where our potential hypocrisy is, quite literally as Jesus warned, “shutting up the kingdom” to those we are called to reach and causing “little ones” to stumble away from the faith. Too often, this happens because our collective reputation is more about advocating against than advocating for. Demonizing their offenses and downplaying ours. It’s about strength, control, and personal security over the way of sacrifice, humility, and becoming the least to reach the more. In fact, those last two references above from Jesus are directed, not at the permissive Romans or syncretistic Herodians, the former was Yahweh professing, Scripture reading, doctrinally conservative Pharisees (Matthew 23) and to the latter the Apostles themselves who were arguing about greatness as opposed to service (Matthew 18). Jesus warns both of those groups, in those texts, of the dangers of hell for such sinful conduct. So yes, I think it’s important.

However, the good news is, once we address our planks, we can then see well enough to care for others and their specks. And that is the key. Helping a person with their speck is about care, caution, and compassion. Specks are not removed through culture wars, name-calling, or parroting pundits, but through genuine love and investment. If we want anyone to seriously consider the Good News of Jesus, they must be able to see both why it is truly good and how it actually forms good people. The gospel is not only something we proclaim with our words, but something we must make visible with our lives toward all image-bearers. When the good news is truly good, it leaves behind a trail of healing, humility, and love that invites others to take a second look.

Why is the Good News Good?

It’s Good because Our All Powerful God became A Humble Man to Serve and Save a Broken and Burdened Race.

It’s Good because He came with Mercy.

It’s Good because He came with Grace.

It’s Good because He came with Compassion.

It’s Good because He came with Forgiveness.

It’s Good because He came with Restoration.

It’s Good because He came with Servanthood.

It’s Good because He came with Love .

And we should be known for this same Good as well.

The apostle says that God first preached the Good News to Abram when He said, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Thus, our calling is to be the blessing than brings the blessing. And Jesus made that posture profoundly, and uncomfortably, clear for all who claim to follow Him. Allow me an amplified version.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who know they need God’s help in this world; God meets them first.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who grieve the brokenness of this world; they will find the comfort of a God who aches with them.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the gentle in this world; they outlast the powerful.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who long to do right by God and others in this world; God shares that hunger and will satisfy it.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the merciful in this world; they receive mercy for mercy.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the wholehearted in this world; they will see God clearly in the world to come.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who seek to create peace rather than merely keep it in this world; they resemble God’s children.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who joyfully suffer for doing right by God and others – be it fellow follower, neighbor, citizen, foreigner, or enemy – for God’s kingdom already belongs to them.

That is flavor for the world.

That is light in the darkness.

That is a city which beckons…

“Come, see these good (news) works, and celebrate the God who inspires them in Heaven.”

Grace

Church, Missional, Politics

The Pride Flag, From A Different Point Of View.

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Have you ever felt that sense where God, your conscience, or your gut was pushing you to do something you did not want to do? Where nothing in your rational mind thought it to be a good idea, but everything in your subconscious was crushing against your soul with restless pressure? Well, that is what this story is all about. In fear, it’s one I would prefer not to write, yet I know fear is the opposite of what it means to walk in God’s perfect love. As Bonhoeffer reminds, the issue always at stake is not “How can I be good?” nor “How can I do good?” but rather “What is the will of God?” For me, this act is God’s will.

Yet I admit, my fears regarding the subject are anything but the product of paranoid speculation. The current climate of our divided society reminds me daily that what I’m about to embark upon risks the wrath of the culture war gods. Yes, the never slumbering metaverse is always willing to pour out indignation unto exile. Yet, it is my observation that contrary to how this pejorative is wielded, the “woke cancel culture” is as much a feature of the conservative religious right as it is of the liberal irreligious left. It might better be described as “anti-woke cancel culture,” but it’s merely the flip of the same coin. In fact, it was my own evangelical heritage that inaugurated what some progressives have gone on to perfect. Both are all too willing to leverage fear, shame, force, outrage, financial punishment, and social banishment as tools of compliance. Neither of which reminds me of the upside-down and backward ethos of Jesus. Of the latter group, I have no such expectations; thus, I take no offense. Of the former, it breaks my heart and often tests my own resolve for reasons that will become apparent.

Thus I write – a rather long story – as an evangelical.

To my fellow evangelicals (though everyone is free to come along).

About painful failures and lessons learned as the parent of an LGBT+ child.

And so… (deep breath)… let’s begin.

Last month was June.

In the Boswell home, June is the busiest month of the year. My wife’s birthday is on the 4th. Our anniversary immediately comes on the 9th. Followed by our oldest daughter’s birthday on the 11th. And then, finally, at the end of the month is the birthday of our youngest and only son Grayson. Gray is our baby (though he’s rolling in on 23 years old and stands taller than his old man now). He was always a happy kid. Right there in the moment. Never focusing too much on what was behind, nor worrying about what was up ahead. A kid who would take 30 minutes to fulfill a 5-minute task as he got sucked into a hundred tiny distractions along the way. In many ways, Gray was the life of the home.

At 12 years old Gray’s world changed. Our world changed. I’m uncertain exactly when Gray knew the earth was shifting under his feet. We’ve never really discussed that element, but at 12, his inner world spilled into our world as a family. One day I came upon Gray playing a video game where his avatar presented with some possibly gay markers. He quickly tried to turn off the game so I didn’t see, but he was just a bit too slow on the draw. Instantly he jumped onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow. He reacted as one caught, exposed, afraid. My wife and I sat with him on his bed, trying to coax him out like a wounded pup under a chair. Finally, I spoke the words I was as afraid to ask. Words he was terrified to answer, “Grayson, do you think you’re gay?” It’s a moment that I will never forget. He turned his face to us, looking as helpless as any human could, and immediately buried his face back into his pillow, crying. The answer spoken without a word. That day the world tilted for us all. A gay kid, from a pastor’s family, in an evangelical environment. How would that play? I wish I could say I handled it with grace and wisdom.

I did not.

Why did I not?

I recall my first exposure to anything about homosexuality was in elementary school. At recess, we would all rush from the classroom to our janky red dirt and gravel playground. It was there the recess game of the day would collectively choose us. While there was a rotating menagerie of favorites, two were the most prevalent. The first was Kickball, where the object was less a foot-based version of baseball and more about trying to kick the ball so hard your slip-on Vans flew off on impact with the ball and cleared 2nd base (moment of confession, we would all front load the kick by pulling our heel out of the shoe to ensure a solid flight time for those sweet checkered kicks). The second game was more straightforward, Smear the Queer (and yes, that feels uncomfortable to write). Here someone was branded “the queer,” and everyone else chased the queer until you caught them and then threw, flung, or forced them to the ground. Hence, you smeared the queer. But hey, it was the mid-1970s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

Around this time, our school had a new student. Being a small town, outsiders were always a curiosity to our ingrown ecosystem, and Adrian was as outsider as you can get. He talked differently, dressed oddly in short coveralls, and came from a place called Austria. When we would all go to the boy’s bathroom after recess, Adrian would unbuckle his coveralls, drop them to the floor, and pee at the urinal with his gleaming Austrian butt for all to see. “You know why he does that?” Sam asked me, “It’s because he’s a fa__ot.” By 4th grade, I was aware enough to know what Sam was saying. None of us had a clue if Adrian was gay or not. But the label stuck, and Adrian was mercilessly picked on as long as I knew him. In fact, the first time I ever saw a person punched in the face and knocked completely unconscious was Adrian. We were playing Smear the Queer, Adrian was just about to reach the “queer,” when the kid turned around and dropped Adrian cold. His reason, “I’m not letting some fa__ot touch me.” But hey, it was the late 1970s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

In high school, I knew of a couple of kids that might be gay, along with one of the girl’s P.E. teachers everyone assumed to be a lesbian. But everyone stayed firmly tucked away in closets. Base words such as d_ke, queer, fa_, fa__ot, and homo were spoken into the air with impunity. There was no sense of a future “wokeness” that would one day displace these as staples in public discourse. People would joke around about the limp-wristed types who spoke with a lisp and had a high fashion sense. Often there were creative innuendos that would make Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special “Raw” feel like a PG-13 TED Talk. Needless to say, to be gay was to be a social pariah. Queers were for smearing, mocking, and generally laughing at. But hey, it was the mid-1980’s and gays weren’t well-liked.

As high school was nearing a close, I enlisted in the Navy through the delayed entry program. One of the steps in this process is MEPS, the Military Entrance Processing Station. Here you are tested for aptitude, physical fitness, and other criteria. The two most common questions I encountered throughout the process were (a) “Have you done drugs?” and (b) “Are you gay?” Not, “Have you ever considered selling secrets to the Soviets?” or “Have you rooted for Army instead of Navy in the college matchup?” Nope, I was asked twice about drugs and perhaps five to six times if I was gay. In fact, at one point, I was with some other kid who was hoping to be Army bound. As we were going through a physical, the doctor sprung both questions on the two of us. I gave a snappy “No sir.” to both questions. My MEPS partner, on the other hand, was “No” to being gay but “Yes” to drugs, weed particularly. “How many times have you smoked weed?” the doctor asked. “Uh, probably between 700-800 times.” The previous night being the most recent occasion. The next time I saw this kid, he was swearing into the United States Army. Had he said “Yes” to the gay question, he would have been disqualified on the spot. But hey, it was the late 1980s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

A few years later, I was in a pastoral internship and taking classes at a local community college. For an elective course, I decided to take a class I figured would be an easy 5-credits, “Intercultural Communications.” I was a decent communicator and thought the class would be about giving speeches on various cultural assignments. Nope, not at all. It was about learning from and communicating with people from various sub-cultures. It was here I heard my first insider baseball talk from the gay community. Up to this point, I was only exposed to one side, the side of my childhood. From there, I graduated into the voices of “The Religious Right” and the “Moral Majority,” which were engaged in a culture war for the soul of America. I was an evangelical, and all evangelicals were well versed in the dangers of “The Gay Agenda” that was seeking to push “special rights” above everyone else’s good old fashion Constitutional rights. The question of gays in the military was on the table with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the rhetoric was at a fever pitch. But, in this class, on some average Tuesday, I was exposed to a side of the discussion I had never experienced before. Real people discussing their real challenges, traumas, and heartbreak. I can’t recall either of the men’s names, but I vividly remember the emotion of that room and the profound shift in my heart toward this community. Both had been beaten up for being gay. Their families had rejected both. One was just diagnosed with AIDS, and the other was worried for his non-partner friend. My evangelical spaces had all sorts of theories for why these men “chose to be gay,” as it was framed. Their moms were too controlling. Their dads were uninvolved. Both were most certainly molested, of course. They also had theories on why the one man was doomed to die of AIDS, God’s judgment on his immoral behavior. AIDS was God’s solution to the gay epidemic. Countless women and children were also inflicted with AIDS throughout Africa due to infidelity and rape. However, they were people of color and way over there, the unfortunate collateral damage of God’s war on queers. That was the standard evangelical attitude in those days. But hey, it was the early to mid-1990s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

Shortly after this small step into the gay world, I had my first true set of gay friends, but I didn’t know they were gay. They were deep in the back of the closet behind grandpas old raincoat. One was Jon, the pastoral intern whom I eventually replaced. Jon and I met together weekly for well over a year. He was an awesome guy. Thoughtful, funny, and intelligent. He had a long-time girlfriend whom he had never kissed. I thought that strange at the time. This was before the whole “I Kissed Dating Goodbye, So Don’t Kiss A Girl Till You’re Married, Or You’re Not Serious About Your God” craze, so having never kissed her after years of being together should have been some sign. Anyway, Jon and I had a lot of transparent conversations where, in retrospect, I think he was trying to come out, but the risk of loss was just too high. Eventually, Jon did come out, a few years after we lost contact, and with that, he lost both his church friends and his Catholic family. Another friend was Greg. Greg was a student in our youth program, where I interned and eventually pastored. Greg was the mega servant guy. He was always showing up early, always staying late. Greg was the person you could depend on. I assumed when he graduated from high school, he might pivot into our internship program to become a pastor one day. Instead, Greg enlisted into the Marine Corps, and man, talk about a transformation. Greg was a husky guy going in, but came out of boot camp 100% a Bulldog. He lived, breathed, loved, and was willing to die a Jarhead for country and kin. And it was as a Marine that Greg began to explore the deep secret of his homosexuality. The era of no gays in the military hit the infamous slippery slope in the 90s when it acknowledged there were, in fact, gays in the military. To combat the problem, a president loathsome to evangelicals named Bill Clinton pushed for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Evangelical leaders warned the move to be the end of the U.S. military and American greatness, but so far, everything is still standing. For a while, Greg sought to comply, but the pressure mounted. Unable to reconcile the Marine Corps values of Honor, Courage, Commitment, Integrity, his deeply held Christian faith, and his secret homosexuality, Greg sought to take his own life. The attempt landed him in a military hospital and under the eye of his command. For weeks they grilled him daily on why he attempted to kill himself. Greg would soon discover that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” cuts one direction, the higher-ups can put a lot of pressure on the asking, and your job as a lowly grunt is to hold up and not tell. Greg finally told and was instantly greeted with Uncle Sam’s boot. A few days later, I found Greg on my doorstep in a daze. Unceremoniously ejected from everything that had been his identity and on the heels of a suicide attempt. In this fragile state, recovering from the trauma and figuring out what’s next with his life, the church we both had formerly attended publicly excommunicated Greg during three Sunday services for his homosexuality. In some recent messaging back and forth, Greg shared how outside of myself, “Pretty much damn near everyone pushed me away at that point.” More than 13,500 service members were dismissed under the 1993 law. But hey, it was the mid to late 1990s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

In 2000 my son was born.

Gays still weren’t well-liked.

Twelve years down the road, we would discover our son is gay.

Would he be liked?

The span of the “aughts” (2000-2009) did see a shift in public tone. The culture wars sided up more evenly as stronger voices for gay rights and equity emerged to enter the arena against the moral majority. But the general tomes remained from the conservative religious community; gays clearly weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

In 2001 Jerry Falwell suggested that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were God’s judgment on America for, among other things, the gays. On the Pat Roberson’s 700 Club program, Falwell emphatically proclaimed, “I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.'” “Well, I totally concur,” responded Robertson. But hey, it was 2001, eleven years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

During this period, there was the recurrent parade of boycotts, protests, and petitions to fight off “The Gay Agenda.” McDonald’s and Disney decided to allow employees to add “partners” to the health insurance plans. So a trifecta of the Southern Baptists, the American Family Association, and Focus on the Family called for an 8-yearlong boycott. Micky and McNuggets were out. We needed to use the power of Caesar’s money to force Christian morality on culture at large (and yes, that should sound ridiculous based on what Jesus says about money). I never understood why we didn’t want people to have health care, but it was a thing. Phrases such as “Hollywood is just shoving all this gay stuff down our throats.” was in vogue in my circles. I remember joking with my wife once that shows may need to give a trigger warning for conservative religious people, “Yes, this show will have a ‘token’ gay person or couple; watch at your own risk.” Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

Toward the end of the “aughts” the liberal land of California introduced Proposition 8, which passed with a 52% yes vote. What was Proposition 8? It declared that marriage was only between a man and a woman. Yes, in the land of Hollywood, hippies, and the homeland of the Pride movement, as recently as 2008, it was decided that homosexual marriage was still off-limits, even in California. Evangelicals saw this as validation that even those godless Californians were willing to hold the moral line. But hey, it was 2008, four years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

In 2010 the Clinton-era legislation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was on the repeal stack before the U.S. Senate. Initially, Republicans managed to block the legislation with a 57-40 vote. When revisited, a GOP-led filibuster was attempted, but a supermajority procedural vote moved the bill past the threat of a Republican filibuster. During this time, military chaplains were most opposed to the change in legislation. Their concern was that they would be required to treat LGBT+ soldiers, airmen, and sailors the same as their heterosexual counterparts openly. Evangelical leaders also raised several objections, not only about the possibility of restricted religious freedoms for military chaplains but warned how the very survival of the republic was at stake if homosexuals openly served. They predicted a gutted military that would face catastrophic consequences for our nation in a time of war. Much of this idea was based on the notion that military success as a nation is directly tied to our collective holiness as a nation before God – our “blessability.” Just as in the Old Testament, where obedience and disobedience was the decisive issue in military victory, so too evangelicals sought to impose this on the American fighting force as a type of biblically rooted superiority. In the end, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed. Most Americans favored it in the spirit of Barry Goldwater, who said, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” Most evangelicals, however, vilified it as yet another slouch toward Sodom and Gomorrah. But hey, it was 2010, two years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

So, way back in 2002, shortly after “the gays were partly to blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the Southern Poverty Law Center began a program called “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” The purpose was “to encourage students to cross social boundaries, disregard stereotypes, and shut down cliques by sitting with someone new at lunch.” The campaign operated in tandem with broader anti-bullying initiatives across the country and had grown from just a handful of schools in 2002 to over 2500 within ten years. However, in 2012 the program came under fire from the American Family Association as being “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.” Mind you that nowhere in any of the materials were gay or lesbian issues specifically addressed, but the AFA maintained that “Anti-bullying legislation is… just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda.” Based on this conjecture, parents were encouraged to keep their kids home from “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” But hey, it was 2012. And I had just found out my son was gay. And clearly, still, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

That year my role shifted. For 12 years, I had been my son’s father, provider, protector.

Now…

I would be his first bully.

I write that with a heart filled with shame and eyes flooded with tears.

I knew those words would need to come.

I wrote them 5 minutes ago, and I’m still weeping.

I hope no parent ever makes the same mistakes I made.

Had he been anyone else’s child, I would have met them with empathy, compassion, and conversation. My exposure to the two men in my Intercultural Communications course years ago gave me great sympathy for the LGBT+ community, as had my friend Greg. But this was my son. I knew what awaited him in my evangelical world. And for every wrong reason one can imagine, I became his first bully.

Why?

Because clearly, gays weren’t well-liked, especially by evangelicals.

In all honestly, fear motivated me. I feared my overall evangelical community in relationship to my son. I knew how they spoke of the LGBT+ community. I knew the jokes, jabs, assumptions, mischaracterizations, and unilateral disapproval. The endless stream of protests, boycotts, and petitions to stop all the agendas for people like my son. They were upset about cakes, flowers, and photography for people like Grayson. I knew he would be the oddity. You know, the kid for whom “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” was created when all the evangelical kids were encouraged to stay home so as not to inadvertently affirm people like my son. I knew people would whisper, “The Boswell kid has got to be gay.” I knew they would look at him with pity, piety, or worse. They would judge his speech, posture, apparel, gait, character, and very identity. He may very well be a complex person with all sorts of layers, but he would be reduced to the pejorative “homosexual,” with an emphasis on homo.

Also, I was an evangelical pastor. I could lose my job. I’m not just saying that. Pastors have lost their positions over having gay kids, so it’s real. Our family would need to move. We had just gotten settled after a rough four years. We had just started a new church in the last year. Having an openly gay son would risk everything.

And what of our future relationship? Evangelical churches excommunicate practicing LGBT+ people. It happened to my friend Greg. People were told to have nothing to do with Greg except call him to repentance, to not so much as even have a meal with him. Would Grayson be excommunicated? Would I need to honor the words of 1 Corinthians 5-6 and never have any relationship with him ever again if he were to go down this road? What about his sisters? Honor prayed for this little brother and has adored him from day one. Emma and Grayson are only 20 months apart and thick as thieves. Would they be forced to decide between a relationship with God or Grayson?

And Ellen…

My sweet wife. She cried with sheer joy when she found out she was having a son. The pregnancy was hard. The months that followed Grayson’s birth were even more challenging due to a health issue induced by the pregnancy. She fought like hell for the first year of his life. And invested passionately every year following. Staying home as a mom. Opting to homeschool all three of the kids as their teacher. Reading countless books on Christian parenting and education. Doing everything “right” to ensure her kids turned out to be godly adults. Making every day an intentional deposit for a tight-knit family.

Ellen and Grayson are particularly close. Two peas from the same pod. What would it mean for them? For us all?

The fears piled on quickly.

And so the attempt to course correct (i.e., bullying) began.

Don’t stand like that!

Don’t sit like that!

Don’t walk like that!

Don’t speak like that!

Why are you going to wear that?

Why do you like stuff like that?

I was counseled to “Dude him up.” So I bought him a motorcycle. Built R.C. cars with him. Drug him out on hikes with a machete. Taught him to shoot guns. Made him watch “Braveheart” to see how real Scottish men act. You know, I focused on a monochromatic vision of masculinity. One in which, quite honestly, I’m not even entirely comfortable with but felt I needed to embrace to fit within my evangelical world. We did have some fun in those times, but my goal wasn’t as much fun as fixing. In hindsight, I see what this was. I’ve always been a massive opponent of Reparative/Conversion Therapy. I think it’s pretty destructive stuff. I’m grateful many states and countries have made the practice illegal. But I was engaged in a twisted version without even realizing it.

Throughout this time, he tried to talk to me about what was happening in his inner world. And I would hear him, but I wasn’t listening to him. I would push back. Challenge his perspectives. Redefine his words, his feelings, his point of view. We would banter about the nomenclature of “same-sex attraction” versus “gay.” He would maintain he was the latter, and I would retort by saying he may be – at most – dealing with the former. It was a battle of identity. How stupid I was. At the very time in life when kids are at their most insecure and vulnerable, I visited upon my son the sins of my father.

Growing up, I didn’t have the best relationship with my father. I was made to feel like I was always some disappointment. I swore I would never do that to my kid.

Until I did.

At 15, everything came to a head. Through a series of events, I discovered our son had a friendship with another young man that was more than mere friendship. The conversation escalated quickly. Grayson wanted to help me understand. I refused. He tried to stand his ground. I had intimidation on my side. I brought every verbal threat an evangelical pastor parent could muster. I could lose my job, we would lose our home, the family would be wrecked, we may not be able to maintain a relationship with you, and you may face an eternity in hell; you get the gist. In effect, I said, “You are going to destroy our entire lives if you do this.” Pretty heavy and devastating stuff to throw down on a kid trying to figure himself out. And it worked. I shoved my son back into the closet he had been attempting to come out of since he was 12. In reality, I only established a new equilibrium, a homegrown version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He maintained all the right words while seeking to send every, “but hey, I’m still gay” signal he could. He planned to say the right stuff until he graduated. Then he could come out without that added burden of putting his family at risk. He assumed, understandably, that it would mean no further relationship with the family who meant so much to him, but to be true to who he was would require loss and rejection.

Grayson didn’t make it to graduation before coming out once and for all. A few months into his senior year, another series of events caused Grayson to pretty much fall right out of the closet. Sitting on our front porch, he sobbed as he told me, “I just don’t believe like you believe. I just don’t. I can’t do it anymore.” That day I just held my son and cried with him. Shortly after, my wife pulled up. She held him and wept. The 5-year quest to stop the inevitable was finally at its end. Now we would find out if all our fears would be realized.

That afternoon I called our church leadership and broke the news that my son was going to live an openly gay lifestyle.

That evening our leaders and some additional close friends came to our house. We talked, cried, and prayed together. We discussed that my job may need to come to a close with this revelation. That is one of the issues our leaders needed to work through. We also decided that I would share about our son being gay at church that Sunday. Kind of crazy right? How many families have to go through such stuff so publicly? But it’s a pastor’s life in a small town. News travels fast, and I knew where there is no story, one will be created. We also discussed the need to make Grayson feel loved and welcomed at church. Ideas were tossed around about having everyone in our church write him a card of encouragement. I also asked our then youth pastor to please take an added interest in Grayson, something I had been asking for regularly but never really materialized up to this point. As the night ended, everyone hugged my wife and me. But, as my son later noted, everyone came over to comfort you, but that night only one person stopped to check on me. He doesn’t blame or fault anyone for that, but he also took note of it.

That Friday, our leaders concluded that I was not disqualified from pastoral ministry even though I had an openly gay son. On Sunday, I shared our story with the church at large. A couple of families left the church, citing I sounded too affirming, but the majority responded with compassion. It was a relief. Perhaps all my fears, all those decades of conditioning, would be disproven. Which would only highlight how awful I had been with all the needless mistreatments my son endured.

When it came to Ellen and me, we felt incredibly loved by people. Most could identify with the perils of parenthood and thus extend to us nothing but grace. But, the story with Grayson was a bit different. The idea of having everyone send him a card of encouragement never materialized, except for a couple of families who took personal and heart-felt imitative. And my hopes of our youth pastor making a proactive investment played out in an opposite manner. Instead, an entire youth group night was dedicated to all the rumors people had heard about Grayson. Our youth pastor approached me the next day to let me know about all the other things I may not be aware of that kids were openly sharing the night before at youth group. That conversation was the only time I can ever recall fully “losing my shit” regarding a fellow staff person. I was fighting for the soul of my son, and the environment I needed to step up the most was sabotaging all efforts. At my son’s work, his interactions with people from church were a mixed bag. Some would come in and double down on friendliness. He loved that. Others would come in and display a subtle aloofness where there had once been warmth. Some kids in the youth group were particularly an issue since every gossipy speculation shared on that fateful Wednesday night was codified as fact since there was never follow-up to clear the air, confront hearsay, or correct statements made.

Overall, I think some people weren’t sure what to do with him, and he sensed it. We sensed it too. And that is true with most LGBT people and the evangelical landscape. At best, pity feels far more like the emotion in play than love. In fact, I still catch hints of the pity at times when people ask how my kids are doing. When asking about my daughters, the octave is usually higher and spirited, “How are Honor and Emma?” When asking the same question about Grayson, the tone drops into that slightly burdened “bless your heart” range. Now, please understand I don’t share any of this in hurt or blame or to shame, but as a tool to learn from and grow in applying the deeply needed feature of uncomfortable grace.

It’s funny; I commonly hear evangelical people say how coming out as LGBT+ is so popular today because you are instantly hailed as a courageous hero without really doing much of anything. I can’t speak for all LGBT+ people, but I can guarantee that my son has never been heralded as any hero. I agree it took grit for him to stay the course of his journey, but precisely because he knew he might suffer significant loss and villainization. And that villain persona persists. We live in the liberal land of Seattle, and still, my son faces insults and ridicule for being gay. The first time he was openly called a “fa__ot” was walking through, of all places, a Target in Redmond, WA. Also, on a walk around Green Lake once with his boyfriend, a group of guys decided to harass “the queer-y fa__ots” who needed to stop holding hands in public. Grayson has shared other stories about the judgment he and some of his friends have faced, especially in the trans community. Even today, I talked with a dad who needed to get our local police department involved with escalating physical harassment toward their transgender child. It’s a lot of pressure when you know a large portion of the country doesn’t like you simply for who you love or the gender you sense. For every group vocalizing support for the LGBT+ community, there is a sea of counter-voices to let them know they are oddities who threaten Western civilization. That’s a lot of psychological weight, especially for a young and anxious soul.

Which brings me back to June.

Where clearly, still, gays aren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

June is Pride Month for the LGBT+ community—that time of year when the gays and evangelicals go to social media war over the rainbow. Oddly, the coalition of anti-Pride is comprised of a hybrid of backgrounds, all unified under the tent of anti-Woke politics. I find this odd only in that most evangelicals see those other faith traditions as theologically hell bound. Yet, cultural foes sometimes require strange alliances in the face of societal slide. It should be the start of a joke, “Why did the Jewish political pundit, the White Nationalist, and the Evangelical set aside their beliefs and walk into a bar? To discuss how to shut down the drag bar across the street before they’re tempted to read ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ to kids at the library.” This year’s Rainbow Wars did not disappoint, which is what was so disappointing.

Before Pride month began, there was all sorts of clamor over Bud Lite doing a marketing campaign with a transgender social media influencer. Next, there was the perennially vilified Target and its Pride apparel line. Apparently, Jesus doesn’t want LGBT+ people drinking cheap pilsner or wearing colorful clothes from non-Christian companies. Next came attacks on Chick-fil-A for hiring a head of inclusion and equity. Immediately following this were calls to cancel the television show “The Chosen”(a show all about the life of Jesus) when a Pride flag was spotted behind the scenes on the gear of a cameraman. People were gleefully posting infographics about how much the worth of Target and Anheuser-Busch had fallen in the face of boycotts. Kid Rock took to his submachine gun to wipe out a stack of Bud-Lites in protest, as though that doesn’t send a violent signal toward trans people. Others vented about how sick and tired they were of all the Pride flag stuff being jammed down their throats at every turn. Evangelicals reminded everyone of the real meaning of the rainbow and to take the colors back for Christ. Even “The Ark Encounter” in Kentucky went to social media with the Noahic replica awash in the hues of the rainbow to reclaim the colors. And as the month closed, the LGBT+ community was handed another setback as the Supreme Court sided with a Christian web developer in Colorado who did not want to provide wedding services to same-sex couples. It’s odd, but as best as I can tell, the LGBT+ community is the only group businesses can legally discriminate against regarding certain goods and services in the marketplace. I can easily see the day when a White Christian Nationalist refuses goods or services to a mixed-race couple because it violates their religious convictions regarding the mark of Cain in Genesis 4. Even atheists business may join the religious conviction model by refusing goods and services to those who disagree with the moral code of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Based on the court’s reasoning, I’m not sure this wouldn’t be a protected position for anyone presenting a religious conviction. Then add to this all the hyperbolic speak around transgender athletes, state laws, school board meetings, and book bans, and the inevitable walk away for a person in the LGBT+ community is pretty apparent – forget whether evangelicals love you or not, they certainly don’t like you at all.

And thus… why would they ever want to listen to us?

We can’t keep dropping anti-LGBT+ cluster bombs in the culture war and then say, “But let me tell you about Jesus who loved you so much he came and died for you.” Which of us would want to lean into, learn from, and do life with a group that collectively sounds like they have little to no regard for you? I learned this lesson the hard way. I have spent years making up for it. And still, regularly, I hear the tone-deafness of my overall evangelical world on the subject. It’s all very religious but looks so little like Christ. Now, I know some will reply, “Matt, don’t forget, love the sinner hate the sin!” Great! Let’s work with that. Let’s make sure the LGBT+ community feels unmistakably loved because many think we only see them as sin.

Which brings me back to June for the last time, Pride Month, and that 6-striped rainbow flag. Many may not realize it, but the colors of the Pride flag have meaning.

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Blue: Harmony/Serenity
Purple: Spirit

Neither I nor my faith convictions are at odds with those six themes. Thus, as the parent of a gay child, I confess I am grateful for the work of the Pride movement. I know that is not the evangelical thing to say, but if Christians had historically faced this issue more like Christ, I might not feel the need to admit it. My faith tradition does not have a great track record of understanding, compassion, or civic tolerance toward the LGBT+ community. We love the founding fathers and their assertion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But regarding the equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals, it’s more like Huxley, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” If it wasn’t for this movement, I’m not sure who would have sought to ensure the LGBT+ community would have civil rights, equal protection under the law, the right to serve their country openly, and general acceptance in everyday society. The Pride flag, to me, is not synonymous with sexual activity but symbolizes a marginalized community’s hard-fought efforts to be treated with equality, dignity, and civility. And thus, the Pride flag has a meaning far different for me; it represents a community that cared about equality for people like my son when the culture at large and the evangelicalism, in particular, would never have done so. In fact, I have found that the evangelical groups and ministries who are courageously seeking to build a bridge, bring healing, and repent for the sins of callousness and unkindness toward the LGBT+ population are doing so mainly because the Pride movement exposed our offenses of indifference and injustice. Consequently, I’m grateful for those in the LGBT+ community who went before so that people like my son would feel cared about while simultaneously confronting our tendency toward a Christ-absent Christianity regarding LGBT+ people.

So why do I write all this?

I have three asks.

And one confession.

First, I write this for every parent who comes across that moment when they discover their child may be asking LGBT+ questions. Our story stands as a cautionary tale. Whatever you do and whichever resources you seek, don’t become your child’s bully. Walk with them. Pray for them. Show the absolute best of Jesus to them. Be compelling through kindness. And ready… be prepared to learn a lot along the way. Also, feel free to reach out to me. I often find that only those who live it fully understand it.

Second, I hope we evangelicals work harder at what it means to obey Jesus’s golden rule of Matthew 7:12, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Ask almost any LGBT+ person, and they will surely tell you how unloved they feel by those who claim the love of God… especially in June. Now, I’m not asking evangelicals to become Pride-affirming, flag-waving allies, but simply Christlike neighbors who do good to and speak kindly of their LGBT+ family and acquaintances; in person, in private, in public, and online. As a pastor friend recently said, “Wouldn’t it be great if evangelicals stopped playing the public square equivalent of ‘smear the queer’ and instead just stopped to listen to and befriend the queer?” His words rang with the echoes of Jesus when a woman was drug into the town center to be condemned by religion and instead was met by the fierce love of God. And that reminds me of what Melinda Selmys wrote in her work Sexual Authenticity, “[Sexual minorities] are not a problem for experts and theologians to solve… They are, first and foremost, the face of Christ, marginalized, bullied, misunderstood, spit upon and rejected, and absolutely beloved of God.”

Third, I invite my evangelical friends to graciously stand up for people in the LGBT+ community when they see them being bullied, mocked, mischaracterized, or treated as the butt of a joke or meme. Too often, I see online jabs and jokes directly or indirectly targeting this population. And in talking with people in the LGBT+ community, many have religious traumas related to mistreatment. We are called to be a population of peacemaking. Incarnating a counter-cultural Christ who used selflessness and grace to draw and heal wounded souls. In this, I’m not advocating we start “calling out” the bullies as bullies ourselves, but instead, we exercise a touch of humanity and privately “call in” to offer encouraging options for dealing with cultural differences in a more kindness-based way.

Finally, I write this as penance. Jesus said, “Woe to those who make these little ones stumble.” I believe that to have been my offense with my son, and for that, I must accept my fate. Like the Pharisees before me, I placed upon Grayson “burdens too heavy to bear.” I should have approached those early years like these last few. Fear drove the former; now, love and faith drive the latter. My 23-year-old son no longer claims a Christian faith, but he has shown me a Jesus-like compassion I wish I would have shown 12-year-old him.

Yesterday I sent this article to Grayson. Shortly after, he called me. He was crying and wanted me to know it was ok. That he understood why we did what we did. And that he hurt with us as his parents. He told me how much he loves me and is proud that I’m his dad. Go figure; he was looking out for me. I broke down. I’m weeping again just recounting the moment, as one slain by the power of undeserved grace.

And Grayson… we are proud of you.

I love you, “wingman.”

Apologetics, Church, Missional, Politics, Uncategorized

the evangelical blindspot

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I think I’m like the Banksy of blogging. I sporadically spring up at times rarely expected. The difference being, Banksy makes bank while my office is in a former one. But today, I was moved to write for the first time since sometime late in the Obama Administration, for today marks 1-year since our church went digital due to Covid. What is the 1st-anniversary gift for a pandemic anyway? N95’s? Toilet Paper? A Flowbee? (ask your parents). Regardless, such a benchmark gives you an opportunity for reflection. So today, I was reflecting. In tandem with this, I read an article this morning and found personal reflection mingled with pastoral grief.

Before we get underway, I want to acknowledge that evangelicalism in the United States is a complex ecosystem with nuanced views on politics, social justice, equity, cancel culture, science, Covid, and the policies around such things (you know, the stuff that made 2020/21 the great social Tilt-A-Whirl). Evangelicalism is not quite as monolithic as cable news implies, but close. That’s why I say an ecosystem. It’s much like rainforests; they look slightly different from place to place, but everyone knows when they are looking at one. Also, like an ecosystem, it affects the larger environment around it. As a pastor, my focus is on how the world experiences the effects of our collective faith ecosystem.

In real-world speak…

would our communities say that what we’re doing, stating, posting, etc., has communicated unmistakably that above all else, we’re here to love and serve them as neighbors because, in doing so, have we truly loved and served God?

would our disbelieving or de-churched communities be even the slightest bit tempted to think, “Yeah, I don’t like their religion, but I’m sure glad they were around for this last year.”?

would they come even close to describing evangelicals as a people of selfless love in a season of cultural suffering?

would “loving” be in the Top 5 descriptors used of evangelicalism in 2020/2021? 

Hum.

But, deeper questions are gnawing at my heart, questions of deep spiritual consequence.

Did we as evangelicals sense…

a burden to ensure that above all else, putting others before ourselves was our priority, both in the optics of how it looked to them (since we are to be light) and in the application of how it was experienced by them (since we are to be salt)?

the weight of the First Commandment more heavily on our soul than the want of the First Amendment? Which did we quote more? Which gave us hope more? Which bothered us more when we didn’t see it applied? Which of the “Firsts” was truly first and drove our actions, reactions, dispositions, and perspectives this year?

resolve to love others well with an unmistakable calling to care, even if we looked foolish (per Paul), weak (per Peter), or perhaps worst of all, like sheep (per Jesus)?

Ouch!

In the article I was reading today, written by a conservative Christian publication, this was the line that struck me, 

“The survey, which has a sampling error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, also found that white evangelicals are also the least likely faith demographic to consider their overall community’s health effect when it comes to deciding whether to get vaccinated. Just 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider community health effects “a lot” compared to 70% of black Protestants, 65% of Catholics and 68% of unaffiliated Americans.”

Now, I know some will find themselves pinned down on the beachhead of the word vaccinated. Others, wary of the woke culture, have already cued an eye-roll with the phrase white evangelical. While important discussions in their own right, they are not my focus here. The devil’s in the details, and he would most certainly love to sidetrack us on those topics so we overlook the real issue that may be of concern. So what’s the “buried lead” of the story? “evangelicals are also the least likely faith demographic to consider their overall community’s health effect when it comes to deciding… Just 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider community health effects ‘a lot’” 

That little bit of data may have unearthed a lot about our collective ecosystem’s heart.

Think about it. A faith demographic…

whose founder modeled selfless love toward a planet of sinful neighbors and told us to follow his example (1 Peter 2:18-25).

whose number one most crucial commandment calls it to love God and neighbor (Mark 12:29-31) since to love our neighbor is evidence that we actually love God and it’s not just lip-service (1 John 4:20).

whose entire moral code is summed up in the one great umbrella virtue, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law… Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:8-10)

whose final exam is explicitly rooted in what we did to the least of those around us (Matthew 25:31-46).

That faith demographic is the least likely demographic to consider their overall community… Community, a synonym for what the Bible calls our neighbors.

Now, I can imagine right now some will be quick… 

to respond. 

to take offense. 

to reject the conclusion.

to add disclaimers. 

to write a retort.

to stop reading and punch an angry emoji into the comments section.

to point out that this is only about “community health effects” (while adding something to the effect of “alleged” or “over-hyped” or “politicized” to the front of the phrase), and that such a topic is not a tangible way to measure if we genuinely love our neighbors. 

But God seems to disagree! 

Don’t miss me here; I’m not seeking to squeeze public health policy into a command to love our neighbors. God did that for us; I’m merely attempting to take the Bible at its word. The law to love your neighbor comes from a book of the Bible that is explicitly about “community health effects” on our neighbors. How coincidental is that? Leviticus may read like a kid playing with a sensory box in a petting zoo with its 247 laws about disease, diet, discharges, and polycotton blends, but it’s also the birthplace of the “love your neighbor” command (Lev. 19:18). And its 3300-year-old decree to make love tangible toward our neighbors in real world ways still stands. It’s on the lips of Jesus. It’s in the letters of Paul. And it’s seeking to find a home in a 21st-century Christian internet article from a Pew Research poll. God was clear in Leviticus that not considering your neighbor’s well-being (due to leprosy, mold, scaly skin, bodily fluid, disease from sickly animals, [insert your favorite communicable disease here]) was a failure to love them. The failure to consider another is the failure to love. 

If I consider myself more than you, regardless of the inventory of reasons, excuses, justifications, rights, laws, problems, or rationalizations, I’m deciding – by intentional will or partisan blindness – not to love you as God instructs me. And thus in the process failing to love God since he tells me to love you. I’m sunk instantly on God’s top-tier expectation.

Paul said a proper display of authentic love is when people “in humility consider others more significant than themselves.” (Phil. 2:2-3). Therefore my friends, a failure to love our neighbors may be the gravest of our collective sins since love stands at the pinnacle of our Lord’s priorities.

That last line is not for dramatic effect, but sober reflection. When the church in Ephesus was about to lose its love, Jesus started packing his bags. They were doing all sorts of good conservative religious stuff, but without love Jesus said there was nothing worth sticking around for (Rev. 2:1-7). Regarding a lack of love, Paul said worse.

We, as evangelicals, are very good at identifying the sins of our society, but perhaps our efforts would be better rewarded by addressing our sins against society. That’s why I’m not all that invested in the pro/con debates between pro vs. anti-mask. Pro vs. anti-vaccination. Pro vs. anti-lock-down. Pro vs. anti-[fill in your blank]. What I am interested in is that each of us, as evangelicals, looks deep and prays hard so as to be confident that whatever positions we take, we take them because we find those to be the most biblical and unmistakable way we can let the world know, “we’re considering you as more significant than ourselves” for that’s what “loving a neighbor” is all about. If our positions clearly communicate to others, “I care about your …” I think that’s what God cares about. If our positions clearly communicate to others, “I care about my …” I think that’s what God is concerned about.

Jesus was emphatic that “the world will know we are his followers by our love.” Wouldn’t it be amazing if the world agreed? 

***

Since this has swollen to the length of a book, I might as well offer a reflective epilogue for the one poor completionist who stuck it out. As the article came to an end, I felt a deep-seated pause in my soul. One of those “I don’t want to take another step” pauses that occurs because you don’t want to face what may be the most challenging possibility of all.  

Not simply that, perhaps…

we haven’t loved a disbelieving world as well as we would like.

we became diverted by self-interest even though we desire self-sacrifice.

we let our fears or frustrations disrupted our intentions.

we inadvertently became more caught up in the passions of amendments over commandments.

we became too focused on our personal rights vs. God’s gospel objectives.

we are all too human and failed to live up to the ideals of love and want to do better.

But, when confronted with the idea that perhaps we don’t consider or love our neighbors as we should… we’re more bothered at the accusation than the possibility.

Or worse still, we hear it and frankly don’t care.

Indifference.

The state which lets you know Jesus has long since left the building.

Church, Parenting, Uncategorized

An Open Conversation Between A Gay Son And His Pastor Dad

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IMG_3283We have saved the best for last. In this recent installment of The Everyday Missionary Podcast, I sat down with my son to talk about what it’s like to come out as gay in a Christian pastor family. Our hope in this was not simply to offer a glimpse into the challenges and closeness that can emerge, but also to display how the Christian and gay community can communicate with one another in a spirit of kindness, empathy, and understanding.

An Open Conversation Between A Gay Son and his Pastor Dad (Pt.4)

Church, Missional, Parenting, Uncategorized

I’m A Pastor And My Son Is Gay, Now What? Pt. 2

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ishot-041Three months ago our 17-year-old son shared with us that he no longer held to our Christian faith and that he was in a relationship with a young man. However, our journey with our son and his sexuality began far earlier than a fall day back in October. In this episode of The Everyday Missionary, I have sought to retrace our steps as a family from 12-years-old until that autumn afternoon. In doing so, I seek to highlight some of the things I believe we did thoughtfully as parents in light of our faith, but also some of the things I know I handled badly. Equally, I share how there were things Gray did right in this process, but also things he handled poorly (though I share no specifics regarding Gray since that is his story to be shared in Pt. 4). My hope in this series is that our experience can act as an aid to better handling such events in life with grace, truth, awareness, compassion, seeking and granting forgiveness, and love even in our differences.

Part 2: I’m A Pastor And My Son Is Gay, Now What?