== 1 ==
If:
- Martin Luther King, Jr, was correct when he said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Then:
- Racism anywhere is a threat to people of minority races everywhere.
- Sexism anywhere is a threat to women everywhere.
- Homophobia anywhere is a threat to LGBTQ persons everywhere.
== 2 ==
If:
- Homophobia anywhere is a threat to LGBTQ persons everywhere.
Then:
- Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in Islam is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Muslim.
- Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in Christianity is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Christian.
- Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in major denominations of Christianity, including The United Methodist Church, is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Methodist.
== 3 ==
If:
- Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in major denominations of Christianity, including The United Methodist Church, is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Methodist.
Then:
- The Church contributes to the climate of “othering” of LGBTQ persons by saying they are “incompatible” with Christian Teaching in ways that straight people are not.
- The Church bears reflection for how its policies and practices do harm to people outside their sphere of responsibility.
- The Church is complicit in how its policies and practices affect the culture around people outside of the Church.
== 4 ==
If:
- The Church is complicit in how its policies and practices affect the culture around people outside of the Church.
Then:
- The Church has its moral obligation: To say violence against sexual minorities is never acceptable, to classify such things on the same category as violence against women and ethnic minorities, and to repent of its sin in inadvertently enabling such violence.
- The Church has its unique opportunity: The intersections of LGBTQ and gun violence require a holistic approach across multiple diverse contexts, which is where the Church is already, so we can lead the way to study and stop it through listening and advocacy.
- The Church has its call: to remove its own policies against LGBTQ persons and stop the practices that harm LGBTQ persons, for the sake of their very lives and our own doctrinal and missional integrity.
== 5 ==
If:
- You are offended by the implication above that Christianity in general, and The United Methodist Church in particular, bears responsibility for the actions of a Non-Christian man who shot 100 LGBTQ persons and friends in Orlando.
- You are offended by the politicizing of a tragedy in order to call for change in a seemingly unrelated field of concern.
Then:
- Your responsibility is to talk to LGBTQ persons and ask them if the Church contributes to these situations and how the politicizing of LGBTQ persons’ entire lives is done everyday.
- Your responsibility is to research how many LGBTQ teenagers experience homelessness because their parents are Christian.
- Your responsibility is to refute the claim that the Church can stand with integrity against violence towards women and ethnic minorities, but it cannot stand the same way against violence towards LGBTQ persons, whom it renders in a different category through sanctioned polity and practice even as it claims “homosexual persons are of sacred worth.”
- Your responsibility is to say “I’m sorry” more than “It’s not my fault” today. I will practice this as well.
===
Thoughts?
Yet, our denominational literature on bullying has been bullied to not say gay, and similar action recently in the North Georgia Conference. It’s a systematic devaluing of LGBT lives, and a harmful theology. Our Good News, Confessing, and IRD friends should be on the front lines denouncing kill the gay laws in Africa and advocating against violence of LGBT persons, instead we have the experience of General Conference and quotes like this from 2015– which are meant to erase LGBT lives, at a time when LGBT youth disproportionately attempt suicide, are homeless, and are bullied:
“Bullying is a much broader problem than just when it is aimed at LGBTQ teens. The church ought to be a voice for loving treatment of one another, particularly those who are perceived as ‘different’ for any reason,” said the Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News.”
http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/effort-to-change-funding-rules-on-homosexuality
Until our GN/IRD/Confessing friends make it absolutely clear their theology will not lead to violence against LGBT persons or self-hate against LGBT persons –and the burden is on them to prove it does not– I will see them as silently complicit, their fundamentalist theology in practice leads to minority stress and emotional, spiritual, and even physical violence. We don’t need to look to Islam, we have our own homophobia here– more stealthy, more difficult to pinpoint, but ever present.
The Orlando massacre was an attack on America, sure, but it was specifically and intentionally an attack on LGBT persons. Again, a systemic issue of erasing LGBT persons. It’s all related, all systemically evil, in radical Islam or Fundamentalist Christianity.
YES! YES! YES!!
IF someone writes such truth, THEN it should be shared as far and wide as possible.
Great logic! I like the way you laid this out. But I fear logic does not deeply penetrate the skin of those who hide behind the crumbling wall of scriptural authority on this issue. I hope and pray that reasoning such as yours will prevail one day soon.
Thank you for this strong call for United Methodists to acknowledge our complicity in this systemic sin, as well as the failure of some of our well-intended efforts to address it. When we label those who differ from us as “other,” we dehumanize them and implicitly give our permission for them to be abused with impunity. But we also dehumanize them by absorbing them into a larger, dominant whole, implicitly giving our permission for their plight to be ignored as just another instance of something regrettable that happens all the time.
It is similar to those who consistently counter the statement “Black Lives Matter” with the phrase “All Lives Matter.” That misses the point. Of course all lives matter. But all too often, Black lives are treated as if they don’t matter. Stating that “Black Lives Matter” is an attempt to combat this specific, tragic dehumanization to which so many of our fellow citizens/human beings are subjected.
The same is true of the LGBTQ community. Of course it is tragic when any innocent life is taken. But the Orlando attacker specifically targeted these innocent lives because he believes they are deserving of hatred and death simply because of who they are. If we bury that specific fact under a generic grief for lost innocent lives, we will be unable to win the battle against this targeted hatred.
For the active role we have played in casting aside those of your children who differ from us, or the passive role of obscuring the specifics of their human suffering under a veil of sympathy for all, forgive us, we pray, O Lord.
One of my friends messaged me “it baffles me that so many non-affirming Christians have compassion when somebody else kills us but don’t seem to care when we’re killing ourselves because of them.”
We are complicit in a culture that teaches that some lives are worth less. Thank you for laying it out so well
Not quite following your logic…”Rendering LGBTQ persons as “less than” others in Christianity is a threat to LGBTQ persons who are not Christian.”
Seems to me that LGBT persons are threatened whether they are Christian or not. What am i missing?
Not sure I follow or agree with your logic either. If the UMC changed their stance would this violence cease to exist?
We all contribute to violence in one in some way by lack of knowledge, giving into complacency or turning the other way.
If the UMC changed its stance or at least said unequivocally that violence against the LGBTQIA community is not acceptable and that they are precious children of God,
then there would a movement towards less hatred in the world.
If we move towards less hatred in the world.
then others will follow.
If people follow us towards peace
then the world becomes more peaceful and violence decreases.
We actually have said that very thing in Resolution 2042, which is still in force at this time. It will lapse in January because the committee reviewing it didn’t finish its work– not because the committee or GC rejected it or overturned it per se.
Here’s the statement in part:
“Whereas, actions rooted in homophobia and heterosexism, including violence, threats, ridicule, humiliation, discrimination, isolation and rejection, are damaging to persons of all sexual orientations and identities…
Therefore, be it resolved, that The United Methodist Church strengthen its advocacy of the eradication of sexism by opposing all forms of violence or discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sexual practice, or sexual orientation…”
2012 Book of Resolutions, p. 131.
So the traditional stance of Methodists who do not believe that same sex marriage is scripturally supported are complicit in the murder of 49 people in Florida. Don’t think so. To suggest such a thing is reckless in the extreme.
Scripture supports the stoning of children (Deuteronomy 21:18–21) but that’s not really widely practiced amongst Methodists, is it? We live in a different age and time. If you used a garage door opener in biblical times you would have been burned, stoned or worse as a witch. Please.
When a culture of “other” is created, that gives license to bully, demean or otherwise annoy, regardless of the “intent”, because there are those who interpret the words of the BOD in a very literal way – so picking on LGBTQ folk, becomes “God’s work” (in their feeble not very capable of critical thinking, little minds). This is especially true of those who are challenged through their own psychological or emotional wounds. So yes, the culture of “traditional” anything where absolute inclusion isn’t the rule of the day is a form of complicity in the tragedies of Orlando, or the terror in the LGBTQ communities in Africa fostered by mythic-literal Christian missionaries – who had never worked out their own sexual stuff before they went promoting “Jesus” to the world.
If you don’t believe same sex marriage (now in the US known as “marriage”) is right, don’t marry someone of the same sex. But when it becomes an institutional teaching, with the imprimatur of a “religion” something is very wrong.
Shows how far apart we really are.
You mean this passage, from Leviticus 20:13?
“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
The scriptural literacy you advocate for was fulfilled by the shooter.
Or are you only reading scripture selectively.
Jesus said “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
If we as Christians consider gay people “the enemy”, we are still obliged to love them. This doesn’t mean approving sex between men or between women. However, it does mean caring about them as people, looking out for their best interests as people, and protecting them from harm.
It means something like this:
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
–Evelyn Beatrice Hall
(Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/evelynbeat109645.html)
It means that we Christians should stand up for the basic rights of gay people and even be willing to die for them to protect them from harm. For example, Christians believe that Jesus is Messiah, and most Jews don’t, but quite a few Christians protected and hid Jews during the Holocaust. Similarly, we must protect gay people whether we agree with them or not.
We Christians must also stop practicing extreme, ridiculous homophobia. Jesus wept. He showed affection for other men and felt safe around women. We must stop promoting unbiblical “machismo” definitions of masculinity.
We must ask ourselves if the same Jesus who healed a Roman centurion’s servant and a Canaanite woman’s daughter wants us to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. We must ask ourselves if the same Jesus who saved an adulterous woman from stoning wants us to “cast the first stone” when it comes to the gay community.
So, in any if-then chain, if there is a flawed premise, the resulting chain and at least some of its conclusions will be flawed.
This whole chain rests on the claim that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” is true in, from what I can see you are doing, an unqualified way.
I’m not sure it is.
The premise, on its face, seems to assume that even the slightest form in injustice in the most isolated of conditions may, in fact, not just in theory, have a significant ripple effect everywhere. I don’t know of any way to prove that.
Further, it seems to presume that justice is a known and knowable quantity or quality that is the same everywhere. If does not take into account different narrative contexts in which the same act could have very different interpretations and, therefore, effects.
Finally, it seems to imply, though it does not say, that any injustice anywhere (as interpreted within the narrative frames in which it takes place) generates the same level of threat to justice everywhere (regardless of narrative frames), regardless of the degree or kind of injustice involved.
I’m not convinced any of these three understandings, which seem to underlie the kind of argument you are making from this premise, are themselves either factual or coherent.
What is factual is that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said this.
What is also factual is this statement has had significant impact on both ethics and politics. I would submit, as an argument, that this impact has generally been toward a greater common human flourishing.
So the effects of this statement may have generally been good for us.
But that doesn’t mean the statement itself is, in itself, either accurate, coherent, or true. There is such a thing, after all, as a salutary deception.
I’m not suggesting this statement is in the category of salutary deception. I’m merely noting that because a statement has salutary effects is not (in logic at least) sufficient evidence of its accuracy, coherence or truth.
So I don’t think your logic chain actually works.
That the logic chain doesn’t work doesn’t invalidate all of your conclusions, nor does it mean your concrete suggestions are wrong. It just means they don’t necessarily follow from the logic chain you have established because the underlying premise is itself flawed.
Keep working on this, Jeremy. I think there are coherent ways to get to at least some of your conclusions about the reality and degree of Christian complicity in this horrific act of terror and hate and the kinds of things we need to be doing, specifically as United Methodist Christians, to address the responsibilities and opportunities that lie before us to redress this occurrence and more substantially limit, if not entirely prevent, our complicity in future ones. I just don’t think you’ve yet provided them.
A parsing worthy of any Medieval Scholastic, TWBE. It seems to me you have raised some genuine concerns about areas in which further thought by Jeremy would be productive, but you have done so by transforming his words into more easily refuted straw versions of themselves.
1) “The premise, on its face, seems to assume that even the slightest form in injustice in the most isolated of conditions may, in fact, not just in theory, have a significant ripple effect everywhere.” To begin with, you have amplified the claim of his premise by the addition of numerous qualifiers neither present in nor implied by the original. While the addition of “the slightest form” and “most isolated of conditions” may be defensible in order to test the universal applicability that is, indeed, implied by the premise, the addition of the wiggle word “significant” is not. It is safe to assume that the effect of injustice anywhere must be at least noticeable or measurable everywhere, else the premise is invalid, but you have inferred that such an effect must be “significant.” Plus, you have labeled it an “effect”–i.e. a fait accompli–but the premise speaks only of a “threat,” claiming only potential negative effect.
2) “Further, it seems to presume that justice is a known and knowable quantity or quality that is the same everywhere. If does not take into account different narrative contexts in which the same act could have very different interpretations and, therefore, effects.” Here, you have once more over-stated the claims of the premise, presumably to make it more susceptible to your critique. It nowhere asserts that justice is “the same everywhere.” To turn your own words back upon themselves, the Dr. King’s statement could just as easily say, “Injustice (as interpreted within the narrative frames in which it takes place) anywhere is a threat to justice (as interpreted within the narrative frames in which it takes place) everywhere,” without any substantive change to its meaning. But the clumsy rhythm would ruin the rhetorical effect, anywhere and everywhere.
3) “Finally, it seems to imply, though it does not say, that any injustice anywhere (as interpreted within the narrative frames in which it takes place) generates the same level of threat to justice everywhere (regardless of narrative frames), regardless of the degree or kind of injustice involved. I’m tempted at this point to say simply, “See above.” Frankly, I find it a little hard to believe that someone of your obvious mental acumen would couch his logical coup de grace in such flimsy weasel words as “it seems to imply, though it does not say.” I must ask you, then, wherein do you find this implication? In your own inference, perhaps? I find nowhere in the words actually used the suggestion that “the same level of threat” is generated everywhere, nor any basis for concluding that threats not of the same level are inconsequential.
Let me reiterate my belief that you have indeed given Jeremy some additional grist for his mill, but, at the risk of appearing presumptuous or even condescending, let me also suggest that you “keep working on this,” Taylor.
This is not christianity this is cultural marxism. The author is cynical.
IF…General Conference delegates believe gay people should be arrested and punished as criminals even referencing the execution of gay people by their home governments and you neither challenge nor condemn it, but instead build an alliance with these persons to build personal power and to fortify voting margins on anti-gay provisions of the Discipline AND if you refuse to plea for gay youth to choose life over suicide (see North Georgia Annual Conference 2016) AND you call for literal reading of Leviticus 20:13 that Biblically mandates putting gay people to death
THEN…your coalition includes those who want gay people dead.
IF…a Methodist madman every shoots up a gay bar and then cites your statement and reading of the Bible as justification
THEN…what would you say.
Breathing, living, loving, caring, working, laughing, joyful, creating people are dead. Spouses, siblings, children, grandchildren, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and friends are dead. People we call “incompatible with Christian teaching” are dead. We single them out as “incompatible”. We say they are different and unworthy. We make them a target for deadly words and deeds. Own it, UMC.
IF…(as is possible in this situation) public shame and self-loathing of a gay person drives them to act out in murderous ways
THEN…a church who loves all God’s children must cease shaming gay people and spiritually abusing its gay members.