I'm really grateful that Ron Belgau was one of the contributors for "Bridging the Gap: Conversations on Befriending Our Gay Neighbours."
Ron is a thoughtful and mature follower of Christ who also happens to be gay. He is someone with deep convictions - that some of our readers will share, and others will disagree with. What stands out about Ron for me, is that he is someone with deeply held traditional views and yet he engages with a great openness, love and care for his gay friends who have come to different theological perspectives than he has. Ron really seeks to stay in step with the Holy Spirit - not wanting to be like a pharisee in people's lives but wanting to be open to follow the Spirit's prompting.
I hope that Ron's connections in the Catholic community will open some doors for the BTG dvd being useful in that part of the Body of Christ.
Check out this clip:
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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13 comments:
Part I
I guess there really isn't anything new here with Ron's comments. Although I guess some people in the Evangelical/ROMAN Catholic community may have not met people like him. I have expressed my views fairly clearly about how I feel with respect to "Gay Christians" such as Ron. I think its admirable that he is willing to stay in conversations and friendships with Gays and Lesbians and others who disagree with him.
I still feel, like most of these videos, have a hint of self-righteousness, especially this video. His statement that "I have no deadline for my "gay friends" to change their mind and to embrace his implied celibate bliss.
Although I am sure he will quick to point out that God is all he will ever need. While I totally agree with that on a lot of levels. God also put other human beings on this planet to love and be loved by other. He created some of us Gay and some us Straight.
This might come out wrong but honestly, while I love to read the bible, love to be involved in my local Episcopal Church, in the end, at night, I know that I have a wonderful loving man waiting for me who loves me.
A man, like so many other Straight Christians, that believes that we should love one another, it just so happens that the person he loves is another man and that person happens to be me.
The Bible, while very comforting, will NOT give you a warm embrace when you get home at night. Nor will be there when you have lost a loved one, or be there in the good times and the bad. The Bible will not be there to hold you at night when you are sick or when you need to vent about work.
The Bible will CERTAINLY not be there when you crave physical attention or cuddle with you on the couch. I could go on and on, so I think you get my point. YES YES YES, God will certainly be there. He is certainly involved in my life and my partners BUT we take God's creation seriously.
For us, God created us Gay and therefore we should live out that reality as Gay Christians and that means falling in love and having a family just like heterosexuals.
It just seems to me in general that Ron is the kind of evangelical Christian that I find most concering. He states very clearly that he is trying to witness to Gay Christians. If you go back and look at my one of my first posts here you will read that he is exactly like the "kinder gentler" Christian who is trying to "gently" lead Gay folks out of sin.
I am sorry but in my book, thats still homophobia. I believe that SOME people in the evangelical community are VERY threatened by Gays and even MORE threatened by the idea of GAY CHRISTIANS. So, I think there has just been a change in tactics. While I do not believe you(Wendy) or even Bridging The Gap is engaging in this "new approach" I do KNOW that there are those people out there who are.
Obviously I don't know him as a person or what he has gone through in his life, but a lot of what he says thus far sounds a lot like words that Gays and Gays and Lesbians are not interested in hearing.
My guess is that Ron wants to befriend other Gays and Lesbians in hopes of building true friendships and he is probably done that on a very successful level. I think thats GREAT BUT.. if he REALLY wants to connect with Gay Christians such as myself then he needs to let go of the desire of hoping that God is going to smack us on the head and say.. you must be celibate.
He also needs to not "look over" the fact that people like me ARE Gay and it IS a defining characteristic of who we are. Being gay is not just sexuality, it's a deeply personal, GOD GIVEN, attribute of who I am. He needs to accept Gay people for who we are and not wonder when and if God is going to change us.
Here is the other big secret, those of us who are Gay Christians are secretly praying that he fully accepts the the fact that he is Gay BUT you can also be assured that we will not hold that against him if he never comes to that conclusion.
So I respect Ron's decision to be celebate but quite honestly he needs to be aware of the fact that most of us who are Gay Christians don't need or want a deadline to conform to his theological point.
Thanks Wendy for allowing me to vent..you have been very gracious in letting me do so. God is certainly well pleased with the work you are doing here. I truly believe that. Blessings, Jack
Hi Wendy,
I want to think about this video and read Jack's comments more carefully before I offer my thoughts. In the meantime, though, I hope you won't mind if I share a link with you and my other readers. A very dear friend has recently returned to blogging and her most recent post is very relevant to what you're trying to do here.
-- Jarred.
Jack's comments following these video posts are helping me clarify one of my key questions in this "bridging the gap" business.
We need to "own" our convictions and live confidently according to what we believe. This has been written in several "Bridging the Gap" blog entries.
Say I'm like Ron, I'm "side B," and I'm owning my convictions firmly, and, like Ron, hoping and praying for my "side A" friends to become "side B." And perhaps my "side A" friends are equally "owning their convictions," and are also praying for me and hoping or expecting I will change my mind and see things their way.
This is all fine; we're free to love each other and disagree and pray for each other to see the light. And I think Ron is on the right track in saying that our friendships with people shouldn't depend on them thinking the same way we do within a certain time limit.
But I think we need to go further in order to get rid of the hint of self-righteousness and "patronizing" that Jack still (rightly)senses, to bring the friendship on even ground.
Maybe instead of focusing on our friends changing their minds, we should be focusing on listening to our friends - listening in a way that could potentially change OUR mind. How would the picture be different if I said to my "side A" friend, "Tell me how you see things" and then I listened, without trying to rebut their points. And what if I told my gay friends that the godly way in which they live and love sometimes challenges my views? What if we made it clear to each other that we want to learn from each other, learn without automatically filtering out things we disagree with? What if we prayed for God to use our friends to challenge and change us - on this issue - as well as praying for Him to challenge and change our friends? No one of us has a corner on the truth.
The question I still have is, can we still "own our convictions" and approach our friends this way, with one side of our mind open and the other closed? Or is this being "shaky" with our convictions?
Beth,
I really appreciate your thoughts on this. I think that conversations and relationships would go a lot smoother using this paradigm. There truly NEEDS to be a paradigm shift in the Evangelical Community with respect to gays and lesbians and I am NOT talking just about advocating for an end to the violence. I am referring to a total change in thinking and praying and living in relationship with gays and lesbians.
To be honest, gays and lesbians are rarely if ever the ones that want to engage in this dialogue. For many, they have already written off evangelicals a long time ago. I guess Ron is an exception to that rule but he is definitely the exception and NOT the rule.
Those of us who are Gay Christians have most likely already found a Christian Community that affirms who we are without really needing a relationship with Evangelicals.
So, you see, we aren't really the ones that want or need to have this dialogue. Evangelicals have asked us NOT the other way around.
So you will have to forgive us if we are skeptical for quite awhile until we truly understand the need to even have this dialogue. Actually, I take that back, I think I KNOW why we need to have this dialogue, it's just that I am not sure many of us want to have it.
I was lucky to have grown in a liberal mainline protestant denomination so I didn't really grow up hearing the hate and condemnation in the pulpit. I CANNOT FATHOM what it must be like for a Gay Christian who attended a fundamentalist christian church, to all of a sudden be asked to come and talk with a group of people who spiritually and emotionally abused me for years.
I think my answer to Beth is that "YES" you can still own your convictions but be FULLY prepared to let us own ours as well.
This is brilliant. He is correct. Straight Christians are just fine with their fellow heterosexual friends who fornicate etc.; but if they have any gay ones they feel compelled to bring up sexuality issues almost always up front (at the very least).
This is strange.
I also think that this topic is irreconcilable--this blog notwithstanding.
"Gay Christians" (some) hold that the biblical position is homophobic by default (as outlined by John).
By that definition what is there to talk about?
That should be "Jack", not "John".
Thank you all for your comments!
A thought I would just put out there.... for some of us, we may not see the personal value in engaging in the conversations about bridging the gap - because we are personally content with our convictions and the manner in which we live our life. But I think all of our readers can find common ground and some level of agreement with the reality that there are parts of the Christian community that are not safe places for that 12, 15, 18 year old young person who is questioning or discovering their own sexual identity. The value of engaging the conversation and sharing your thoughts may not really be about you personally - but it may be about that young person. Because when we continue to engage with a commitment to listen, to proceed with respect, humility and grace - we become part of a climate and environment change that we may not personally need - but that has the potential to bless and support and encourage that young person.
Short Note : I promise! I don't think the Bible is homophobic I think that the translation and interpretation by some Christians is homophobic. For me the Bible is a wonderful faithful record of Christians and is the foundational document for the Christian Faith BUT I am certainly not a Biblican literalist and there do not think the Bible should be taken literally.
Wendy thanks for your comments about how we AT LEAST need to create safe space for young to talk about their sexual identity without placing judgement on them.
Glory to God! She is great!
Jack
Jack - have you read "The Shack"? If not, I highly recommend it :)
Wendy,
thanks for the book suggestion i will check it out. Jack
Hi there,
I really liked reading through Beths comments. She brought forward some really good questions. I believe we can disagree with another person and yet still respect that person and still hold true to our personal convictions and yet being teachable... it's not saying that we should take another person's word over what the bible says, but we can allow for what others say to challenge our current belief system and convictions. We do this all the time in Christian circles but it somehow is questioned when it comes to the issue of homosexuality as Ron actually pointed out in the video.
I think Bridging the gap is something that we all need to strive for.
I believe there is a nugget of truth here I read through in the last couple of blog posts and the video.
The evangelical church needs to change. There needs to be change. The church needs to become more relational.
The church I grew up in seemed to express this cultural acceptance of divorce and re-marriage, and don't really address the issue with couples living together outside of marriage and yet exclude the homosexual by simply not forming a relationship with that person. It seemed that the relationship would always be based upon conditions... like, "I'll only be friends with Christians," "I'll only be friends with somebody who's gay only if they're making an effort to walk out of the lifestyle."
But I can see why many people in the church have these views because many are taught to only form friendships with Christians and if you're friends with somebody who's not a Christian then it must be for evanglistic purposes only. I think that is actually degrading to the other person who may or may not be a Christian and who may or may not be gay.
Rons perspective is quite refreshing. I might actually disagree with him on a couple of things but there is actually surprisingly a lot of things I'd agree with him on.
I don't shy away from the Gay Community while a LOT of people might think that's just wrong and believe that I compromise. There is an environment I am careful not to be in but since I find that I still engage in friendships with people in the GLBT Community I still find myself not necessarily in the core of the community, if you will, but close enough to be friends with people without have any conditions placed on that friendship and close enough to know their world and to share life with.
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