Category Archives: Social Issues

Christian Formation and the Cost of the Culture Wars

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A reflection by Sarah

About five years ago, I taught a course called Christian Beliefs at a Catholic university. During each class period, we would discuss a different topic that connected in some way to the ideas presented in the Nicene Creed. On the first day of class that semester, I gave the students index cards and asked that each fill his/her entire card, front and back, with as many responses to the following question as possible: “What do Christians believe?” I taught that course twice and have not since been assigned to teach another like it, but being the pack rat that I am, I kept those cards and flipped through them last week while planning an activity for my current freshmen. I had almost forgotten just how troubling the responses where.

First, a bit of context: there were twenty students in the class, mainly from Christian backgrounds. Thirteen identified as Catholic, five identified as Protestant, and two identified as atheist/agnostic. Of the thirteen Catholic students, ten had attended a Catholic high school. Eight of those had been through twelve years of Catholic education. Three Protestant students and one atheist/agnostic student had received education at Christian high schools. Given this information, one might think most of these students would have no trouble generating a list of Christian beliefs that would include many of the religion’s core tenets.

As I perused these index cards last week, I was taken back to the shock I experienced as a second-year teacher reading the responses my class had provided. A few were easily predictable:

  • “Christians believe in Jesus.”
  • “Christians believe in Jesus as the savior.”
  • “Christians believe that Jesus died for our sins.”
  • “Christians believe that baptism washes away sins.”
  • “Christians believe you need to ask Jesus into your heart to go to heaven.”

But those accounted for such a small percentage of student responses. When asked “What do Christians believe?” almost every student in the class included at least two of the following on his/her list:

  • “Christians believe gay people are going to hell.”
  • “Christians believe gay people are sinners.”
  • “Christians believe gay people are pedophiles and shouldn’t be priests.”
  • “Christians believe that if you’re gay, you can’t have sex.”
  • “Christians believe that you have to choose to be straight if you love God.”
  • “Christians believe abortion is a sin.”
  • “Christians believe abortion is murder.”
  • “Christians believe in protecting unborn babies.”
  • “Christians believe you have to be pro-life.”
  • “Christians believe you have to vote pro-life.”

Most students who listed two or more of the above had written perhaps one other statement of belief on their index cards. One responded, “I know Christians don’t like gay people or women, but that’s all I ever learned in Christian school. I don’t know what else to list.” Another produced only four items on her card, indicating that Christians believe in Jesus as savior, gay people as sinners, abortion as murder, and Genesis 1 as a literal account of a six-day creation. A significant number also included statements defining Christian beliefs against certain actions, groups of people, or other kinds of beliefs:

  • “Christians don’t believe other religions are true.”
  • “Christians don’t believe you can be gay.”
  • “Christians don’t believe it’s okay if you kill your baby.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in Muhammad.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in terrorism.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in committing sin.”

I remember taking these cards home after class that day and puzzling over them. Had my students just blown off the assignment? Or were they really unable to think of any other theological issues as core tenets of the Christian faith? At the beginning of the next class session, I initiated a discussion about the responses. I asked everyone to work together in small groups and describe in detail their thought processes during the index card assignment. As I drifted from group to group listening to the conversations, what I heard surprised and saddened me. I heard stories of students who were taught to say a few words for the unborn every night at bedtime prayers but had no idea how to describe the Holy Spirit, students whose high school religion courses had covered morality backwards and forwards but had never touched on Scripture or Church history, students who had attended Catholic school since kindergarten but had no idea that Jesus was God until they had read the first chapter of our course textbook, and students who were becoming (or had already become) so disenchanted with the shallow messages they were receiving at church that they were considering leaving Christianity entirely. It became clear that my students hadn’t blown off the assignment at all. In fact, they had taken it very seriously, and many had articulated carefully all the tenets of Christianity they had ever known.

I handed each group a copy of the Nicene Creed and explained that for the rest of the semester, all our readings would center on theological exploration of different parts of that statement of faith. I asked groups to spend a few minutes looking through the Creed and jotting down some questions they had about what they read. It didn’t take me long to see how eager most of the class was to learn. They posed some excellent questions: What does it mean to say that Jesus is one in being with the Father? What does that weird “light from light” phrase mean, anyway? Why do Protestant churches that use the Creed recite the part about belonging to one holy, catholic, and apostolic church? I remember hearing one young woman say to her peers, “I’ve recited this every Sunday of my life, but never really stopped to think about what it means.”

As it turned out, we had a wonderful semester. Truly this was one of the best groups of students I’ve taught in my career so far. And even though one young man informed me crassly that the best part of the whole term was the day I mentioned that nude baptisms were performed in the early Church, I’m hopeful that most students left the course at least somewhat more knowledgeable about basic Christianity than they had been previously. What saddens me is the reality that a group of young Christians in their late teens and early twenties—most of whom had been Christians their entire lives—were in need of such a basic introduction to their own religion. I see this need emerging again and again in my theology courses, but I’m less surprised by it now after having gained a few years of teaching experience.

The fact that such a reality is possible in a classroom filled with students raised in the Church makes me gravely worried for the future of Christianity. It becomes clearer to me every semester that we as a Church have misplaced our priorities. And it’s not always the students from conservative backgrounds who exhibit this lack of basic Christian education. With some regularity, I encounter students who identify as liberal Christians but know only about Christian principles of social justice and little to nothing about the theology that undergirds those principles. If you look at how Christian leaders are portrayed in the public eye, it never has anything to do with affirmations of the Trinity, the power of the sacraments, or the hope of resurrection. More often than not, Christian leaders that most people see publically (especially in the media) are combatting behaviors and social norms perceived to be contrary to the Christian faith. It seems that anyone can create a list of items that Christians are against: gay marriage, abortion, war, capitalism, poverty, etc. It’s no wonder these are the first sorts of things that come to mind for a lot of young people when they try and list core tenets of the Christian faith. It’s regrettable that Christianity is becoming more defined by boundaries of the culture war than by the good news of Christ. We lose people because we lose the opportunity to invite them to follow Christ as one of his disciples.

As a student of church history, I’m all too aware of the fights people have fought with a desire to keep Christ at the center of the Church. But as issues like homosexuality, abortion, and freedom of religion become the defining issues of American (small-o) orthodoxy, I have to wonder if we’ve placed the culture wars at the center. Every day at work, I see the consequences of these religious battles as I look into the faces of the next generation. I can’t help but sound off from my corner of the universe, entreating all Christian leaders of every tradition to return their focus to Christ. Surely, the attractive pull of the Gospel has the power to guide us all into the fullness of life in Christ… while also having the power to bring the next generation along with us.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

LGBT Media Visibility and the Traditional Sexual Ethic

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Today, LGBT people are more visible in the media than ever before. Many would argue that the LGBT community still does not have enough media visibility. Oppositely, many other people would argue that LGBT issues have too much visibility in the media. Still, some don’t think that it’s important for LGBT people and characters shown on television, in magazines, in movies, etc. to be associated in any noticeable way with their LGBT statuses. Those found in the latter two groups tend to be people who hold to a traditional sexual ethic–often people who mean well, but aren’t sure of how best to approach LGBT issues. However, one could make a strong argument that many of the people campaigning to reduce LGBT visibility in the media are not simply conservative Christians who value traditional teachings on sexuality, but instead are those who hold an anti-gay perspective. Either way, in the eyes of these crusaders, any LGBT media visibility flies in the face of a traditional sexual ethic.

Let’s start by backing up just a bit: we’re sure that nearly all of you, our readers, could identify some instance of the media showcasing sexuality outside the boundaries of a traditional sexual ethic. Some of your examples might even showcase LGBT people and concerns. However, a significant portion of media that feature LGBT people does not say anything about sexual morality. For example, Honey Maid released a 30-second commercial in March 2014 called “This is Wholesome.” The commercial features some different families: a biracial family, a family headed by a single dad who loves his tattoos and drumset, and a family of two gay men and a baby.

In the commercial, the gay couple is featured for 5 seconds. There are zero references to sex. There is nothing sexual that the two men are doing. The men don’t actually show affection to each other; they are showing affection to their baby. There’s nothing to indicate, one way or another, that these characters are having sex. There’s nothing to suggest that the characters are legally married. The words “Dad” and “Husband” don’t appear in the commercial at all.

Yet, many people were incensed that Honey Maid would dare to produce such a commercial. Organizations like One Million Moms were quick to argue that this commercial promotes sexual perversion. We wonder how it’s possible to see LGBT people on television and immediately associate this media visibility with an “attempt to normalize sin.” This same organization accused Disney of “pushing an agenda” when it included a lesbian couple on an episode of Good Luck Charlie. When we watched that particular clip, we did not see any references to sexuality, but found other aspects of the scene that should have been very distressing to people who value marriage, love, and respect.

We can appreciate that some straight people with a traditional sexual ethic feel their beliefs are under attack from many corners of society. However, we’d encourage our readers with a traditional sexual ethic to consider the following observations before holding LGBT media visibility as uniquely problematic.

Media can tell the stories of real people. We’ve noticed that people who are against LGBT media visibility tend not to be aware of any LGBT people in their circles of friends. The idea that your kid might have a friend at school with two moms or two dads is not some hair-brained notion from Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, or DC. It’s the lived experience of real people from all across America and in other countries as well. Additionally, celibate LGBT people are also just as real as non-celibate LGBT people. Some celibate LGBT people even have partners. (And if you’re finding our blog for the first time, take this as evidence that celibate, LGBT, Christian couples do exist.) If a person asserts that LGBT people should not be visible in the media because LGBT people practice a “sinful sexual lifestyle,” then that person is reducing the identities of LGBT people to “sex” while simultaneously denying that LGBT people have just as much diversity in their sexual ethics as straight people do.

Media can give invisible people and groups a sense of belonging and worth. One of the most powerful things about books, television, and movies is how they can resonate with a person’s sense of identity. Most LGBT people, at some point in their lives, experience profound alienation — feeling different, unwanted, shut out from society, and worthless. In these moments, LGBT people can struggle to see themselves as God’s beloved creations. The presence of a visible LGBT person in the media can ease the route of self-acceptance and promote emotional health. For example, Lindsey grew up absolutely enthralled by the space program. Because Sally Ride’s launch date occurred two days after Lindsey’s birthday, Lindsey always felt an affinity towards Sally Ride. However, Sally Ride was not a visible member of the LGBT community until after her death in 2012. Lindsey started asking questions about sexuality and gender identity just as Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell had come out, but neither Ellen nor Rosie were people Lindsey especially looked up to. If Ride had been visible as an LGBT person at the time Lindsey started exploring sexuality and gender identity, then Lindsey is reasonably confident that the coming out journey would have been much easier.

Media rarely showcases a traditional sexual ethic, even where straight people are concerned. We hope that this point is relatively straightforward, but we wanted to call attention to the LGBT-straight duality. It’s become increasingly common to see more and more heterosexual sexual activity in the media. Yet, even though people with a traditional sexual ethic are bothered by these developments, one doesn’t see nearly the level of outrage regarding a heterosexual sexual encounter as the ire that manifests when LGBT people are simply visible in the media without any kind of reference to sex. Sarah has been told by multiple acquaintances that they would rather see a heterosexual extramarital affair scene on shows like Grey’s Anatomy than any character on any program identified as an LGBT person. Some have even gone so far as to say that “Adultery is just wrong. But being gay is both wrong and disgusting.”

From our perspective, this last comment is the most telling about how some people view LGBT visibility in the media. We wish straight friends and acquaintances would see that by offering such remarks, they make us feel unwelcome not only in public, but in their own living rooms. Saying that LGBT people should not be visible in the media is not much different from saying that we shouldn’t get to exist at all. We wish these people would afford us space to tell them what celibacy and our self-descriptions as LGBT mean to us. And we wish these people would see us, first and foremost, as human beings.

We’d love to hear from our readers about your reactions to our observations as well as your perceptions of the positive and negative impacts of increasing LGBT media visibility.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

How Is Gender Used?

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A reflection by Lindsey

As many people know, I’ve been aggressively job hunting for several months. I have lost count of the number of applications I’ve filled out, cover letters I’ve written, phone interviews I’ve fielded, and on-site interviews I’ve attended. Every time I enter a new environment, I’m constantly interrogating how gender is enacted. Failure to read gender appropriately might cause a disaster for me as a person who is rather easily identified as a part of the LGBT community. The majority of states do not have any legislation to protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination. (But, it should be noted that actually proving one has been discriminated against in one’s workplace regarding perceived LGBT status is incredibly difficult.)

Recently, I posted an article on my personal Facebook account where the author asked people to “please stop calling people you don’t know ‘ladies.’” I’ve posted similar articles in the past on my Facebook page, and these articles about gender tend to generate some of the more vocal conversations. On one side, I’ve heard people make an argument that boils down to “Gender doesn’t matter. Simply treat people with respect.” On the other side, I’ve heard people make an argument that boils down to “That’s spoken with a real degree of male/cisgender privilege.”

Because of these conversations, I wanted to take a step back and think about where I’ve seen gender most strongly enacted.

Gender is an essential part of our language of respect. When you call a random help desk for technical support, the person on the other end of the line greets you with the pleasantries of using a gendered title or with “Sir” or “Ma’am” as deemed appropriate. Being gendered is not the purpose of the call. Most of the time, I’m so relieved to be speaking to a human that I just want to get the call over with as quickly as possible. The gendered aspects of the call go smoothest when secondary sex characteristics match what is on record. I have a decent number of transgender friends in various states of medical transition who have had to fight any number of uphill battles because their vocal tones didn’t sound appropriate for their first names or their legal gender markers.

I think one of the reasons why people react so strongly when they are corrected about their use of gendered language is that correcting gender is akin to correcting manners. Kids as young as 3 already practice automatically gendering people they meet. Gender is supposed to be easy.

When you tell someone he or she is getting gender wrong, I wonder if that person feels like he or she has failed kindergarten. Every time people feel like their first guess of my gender is wrong, I can’t help but notice how profoundly embarrassed they are. Here they are, simply trying to be polite, and they feel like they’ve insulted me in the first sentence they’ve uttered. Going from being polite to uttering an insult by making the “wrong” choice of a 2- or 3-letter word…the idea that this is possible is in itself confusing. It’s no wonder the question, “How is gender used?” can elicit such strong responses.

Gender can reinforce valuable social hierarchies. Some of the most gendered environments I’ve been in are the military and educational institutions. There’s a reason why the military wants lower-ranked people to sound off “Yes SIR!” and “No MA’AM!” It seems you get a gender when you’re important enough to pay attention to. I’ve been in many a drill environment where people have been dropped for push-ups because they have misgendered their interrogating superior. After all, “attention to detail” is a core skill being taught to newcomers. Less cynically, it seems that gender is used in educational environments as a way to teach children about respecting their elders. The adults have a last name; the kids have a first name.

Gender can imply to women that they are included in a particular conversation. The Declaration of Independence begins with “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” A student of history knows that the writers of the Declaration focused on the rights of land-holding, white males. Many feminist movements have included an effort to adopt more inclusive language in many areas of life that clearly reflects the presence of both men and women. Shifting language from “man” to “human” can do something psychologically where people clue in that we’re not just talking about the male gender. Clarifying that a community development program wants to support “male and female farmers” can correct an assumption that “All farmers are male” in a proactive fashion. I’m of the opinion we’ve gotten so much better at adding gender where it’s important that we have developed this odd tendency to insert gender where it shouldn’t matter.

I’ve been cultivating the practice of waiting to hear a person use pronouns before adopting a set of them myself. Admittedly, I started this habit because I lived in England and heard a person call his spouse “partner.” Being an American, I’m so used to “partner” being a covert way for a person to come out as LGB that I had to do a double-take when his next sentence uttered was about his pregnant wife. When my gut reaction was to try and puzzle out how this guy had both a partner and a wife, I knew I had to check my assumptions. Learning to listen for the pronouns (and practicing framing sentences where I don’t quite know the right pronouns yet) has saved me tons of embarrassment.

How might these three observations interact in the request, “Please stop calling people you don’t know ‘ladies'”? I think the standards of politeness have shifted towards indicating that we see humans as gendered beings. I’ve observed more than one situation where a group of women harangued a person for addressing the group as guys: the women asked, “Do you see any guys in this group?” in a way that deeply shamed the person who had unwittingly failed the gendered aspects of politeness. However, I also think that the request is fundamentally raising awareness that our standards of politeness ought to be inclusive of transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming individuals. The word ladies is a profoundly gendered word. Ladies suggests not only that a person is female, but also that she has developed a particular kind of decorum appropriate for the upper class. It’s often conveyed either as a compliment (a girl is so grown up that she’s become a real lady) or as a disciplinary measure (adults working with a group of girls running amok yelling “LADIES!” to get their attention). But it’s often hard to read the true subtext.

It can be okay, and even linguistically survivable, to hold off on gendering someone you’ve just met. One potential default greeting for a business could sound like, “Hello! We’re so glad you’ve chosen to visit us today. How can I help you?” Many groups of 3 or more have an organic way of using pronouns to refer to other members in the group. I’ve had a lot of fun talking about people in a way that does not automatically assign gender. One of my personal favorites is, “I’m so excited that two of my friends recently had a baby. Both parents and the child are doing well, but they’re still adjusting to life together.” With some people, I’ve observed palpable discomfort when they figure out I haven’t given them any clues as to whether the child is a boy or a girl. These people frequently follow up with “Is it a boy or a girl?” as an immediate question. With other people, I can tell they are perfectly comfortable speaking of a human as a human first rather than as a gendered being.

As I’ve been interviewing, I have been incredibly guarded about how I disclose my relationship with Sarah. I keep my antenna sky high as to whether I should be discreet (using words like family) or if I can actively test the waters by using the word partner. I can’t help but feel extremely relieved when someone has noticed I haven’t assigned a gender to my partner. Some people ask questions right away to get an appropriate pronoun. Other people follow my lead of sticking with the word partner. Either strategy indicates to me that there’s enough cultural competence around LGBT issues that I’m more likely to be safer in that workplace. To be sure, people are actively gendering me, but I like to think the more culturally competent have at least consulted the gender marker I’ve put on the application. And I look forward to the day when one does not need to disclose one’s gender at the beginning of the job hunting process.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Are allies above reproach?

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Last week when we published 12 Ways People with a Modern, Liberal Sexual Ethic Can Be More Supportive of Celibate LGBT Christians, we received much thoughtful feedback and many questions from our readers. One such question arose from item #6, specifically the sentence: “Don’t assume that you’re above reproach because you have a long history as an ally.” We heard from allies who found that statement confusing and wanted some clarification. One person contacted Sarah and asked: “I take it that statement means you’ve had negative experiences with allies. Can you tell me more about that so I can avoid doing the same things myself?” The purpose of today’s post is to discuss more thoroughly what we meant in saying that allies are not above reproach.

First of all, we believe that no human being is above reproach, and that includes us. Everyone makes mistakes, and if we ever say something that comes across as hurtful or discriminatory, you can feel free to open communication with us about it. That doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily come to a place of agreement, but we’re willing to talk about the issue and would never want to be dismissive of another person’s experience. We believe very strongly in this approach to dialoguing about LGBT Christian issues, and we hope that our allies do to. When we say that allies are not above reproach, it is not an attempt to hold them to a higher standard than ourselves: it’s our way of saying that there’s a need for everyone involved in this discussion to be respectful and listen.

We also believe that allies generally have the best of intentions. Neither of us has ever experienced intentional harm or offense by a straight ally. However, even the most compassionate of people can say and do things unknowingly that hurt others. That’s why listening and communicating is so important. We’re pretty good at sticking feet in our own mouths at times, so we empathize with how unpleasant it is to do what one thinks is right, then find out later how said action adversely affected someone else. But these times are opportunities for teaching, learning, growing, and loving.

Lena Dunham’s recent acceptance speech upon receiving the Point Foundation’s Horizon Award provides a great example of an unintentionally hurtful statement from an ally. As Dunham accepted the award, she told the audience about her sister Grace’s coming out and said the following:

“It was actually a huge disappointment for me, when I came of age and realized that I was sexually attracted to men. So when my sister came out, I thought, ‘Thank God, someone in this family can truly represent my passions and beliefs.'”

No doubt, Dunham’s intention was to show support for her sister and for the broader LGBT community. However, this statement struck us as thoughtless and unkind. Being glad that one’s sister is a lesbian because she “can truly represent” one’s “passions and beliefs” effectively reduces the sister’s existence to “symbol of a political cause.” Whether Dunham meant it or not, she implied that her happiness for her sister’s decision to come out is entirely for selfish reasons. Lindsey has one brother and Sarah has one sister, both of whom are straight. If either of our siblings were to make such a statement about us, we would feel terribly hurt because we are not incarnate symbols of the political left, and we’re skeptical of anyone who cares about LGBT people as a demographic rather than as individuals. Dunham’s remark is the sort of likely-well-meaning-but-ignorant comment that we’re talking about when we say it should not be presumed that allies are above reproach.

We’ve also had a number of conversation experiences with allies in our lives that have turned out to be less than productive. In most cases, it’s because that person has been unwilling to engage further in discussion once we’ve pointed something specific he/she has said or done that we’ve found inappropriate. One example of this came early in our relationship when we showed up together at a function and people who knew Lindsey began asking, “Now that you’re in a relationship, what does that mean for your prior commitment to celibacy?” That’s a fair question, and we had some great discussion about the issue with Lindsey’s friends who were interested in talking about celibacy. But during this conversation, we happened to overhear someone saying, “It’s only a matter of time before those two give up on celibacy. Two more former gay celibates for the cause!” Sarah noticed a pained and irritated expression on Lindsey’s face, so Sarah approached this person and attempted, as kindly as possible, to address what she had said. Instead of acknowledging that she had made an offhand comment that might have been hurtful to us, this person told Sarah that she is a longtime, tried-and-true, dedicated ally of LGBT people. She began to list all the ways she spends her time serving the LGBT community, including lots of grassroots activism and building friendships with married LGBT couples. Sarah expressed gratitude for that commitment, then asked, “Could we talk about what I heard you say a few minutes ago? I’d like us to have a conversation about it.” The ally dismissed Sarah’s request and asked Sarah to think on it again once we see how celibacy is working out for us after a few years.

As a result of that interaction, we’ve never been able to trust this person or see her as safe. The way we see it, being an ally is more about being a safe person for LGBT people than fighting for certain political causes. Past reputation with LGBT people does not warrant an automatic “in” to other LGBT folks’ circles of trust. That’s why we suggested in both our “12 Ways” posts that listening and getting to know people as individuals is of utmost importance. Allies can make errors in judgment when discussing experiences different from their own. So can we. So can anyone. We believe it’s good to practice humility when interacting with people’s stories and coming to see how others understand themselves. Often, the best way to avoid hurting another person unintentionally is to accept that you are not above reproach and receive feedback graciously.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Offense versus Discrimination

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Sarah teaches introductory freshman courses in theology and religious studies in which students will discuss, debate, and disagree with each other on any number of topics. Sarah always tries to model respect for the wide range of diverse opinions and perspectives in the classroom. Oftentimes, Sarah’s class is the first time these students have had opportunity to discuss theology and religion academically (rather than catechetically) in an interfaith environment. On the first day, Sarah is clear to tell all students that they should not worry about being discriminated against for their beliefs during class because all opinions and perspectives are welcomed and respected. However, Sarah also makes clear that it would be surprising if any student in the classroom were to make it through the course without being offended at least once, whether by Sarah or by a classmate.

Sarah finds that the students are often confused by the distinction between offense and discrimination. This confusion isn’t surprising because many of us have been taught that offending other people should be avoided. In Christian circles, saying something that another regards as offensive is often construed as judging that person. Even referring to a certain action as “sin” or “not within God’s boundaries” is taken as a judgment. On the internet, merely having an opinion on a controversial issue (no matter the issue or opinion) can be equated with hatefulness, judgmentalism, inflammatory rhetoric, and discrimination. As we’ve been blogging, we’ve seen firsthand that no matter how kindly or respectfully one might state a position, other people are quick to respond with statements and questions like, “Stop judging me! You’re so judgmental. Are you okay with discrimination? Why do you have to be so inflammatory?”

This sort of knee-jerk response makes honest conversation next to impossible because it conflates earnest disagreement with discrimination. And it’s very, very, very difficult, even impossible, to have thoughtful theological conversation without acknowledging the potential for earnest disagreement. A Muslim student and a Christian student are going to have different ideas about what is essential for holy living. Those different ideas are a natural consequence of real differences in faith traditions.

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re not interested in engaging in the Side A versus Side B debate. At the same time, it is to be expected that the way we live our lives is shaped by the way our Christian tradition understands marriage and sexuality. We have repeatedly stated that Christians should seek spiritual direction within their own Christian traditions when trying to discern their vocations in Christ. We have noticed that the people most willing to suggest that we are being inflammatory seem to be of the opinion that we have perched ourselves in a state of quiet judgment on their ways of life. To be completely fair and honest, we are aware that we (like every other person) can be rude and judgmental at times. For example, we find our capacities for empathy and compassion stretched when we encounter others who, upon our first judgment, seem shallow, immature, or intellectually dishonest. We are aware that these three things have unique power to press our buttons, and we are working to modify our first responses so that we are able to treat all people the way we would like to be treated. At the same time, pointing out possible fallacies within a person’s argument is not the same as calling a person intellectually dishonest or assuming the worst in that person’s intentions. Likewise, we would say that holding opinions (whatever those opinions may be) on marriage and sexuality is not the same as engaging in discrimination against people who hold the opposite opinions.

We’ve noticed that the Scriptural exhortation to “Judge not, lest you be judged” gets misapplied frequently in situations where one person becomes offended by another’s opinion on a moral matter. “I believe same-sex sexual activity is outside the boundaries God has set for us,” is taken to mean, “You’re in a sexually active same-sex relationship. Therefore, I am pointing my finger and telling you that you will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” Or, “I believe there is no such thing as a biblical divorce,” is taken to mean, “You’re divorced and say you’re a Christian. I’m going to shame you for leaving your marriage and insist that you’re still married to your ex in the eyes of God.” Because the person on the receiving end of these statements hears them as judgments, the speaker’s intention gets lost during transmission. We think this is why so often the hearer will respond with, “Judge not” even if the speaker wasn’t judging in the first place.

Embedding statements within particular relationships can go a long way in recovering the speaker’s intention. The person saying “I believe there is no such thing as a biblical divorce” might be struggling in his or her marriage and trying to discern the best way forward. The person saying “I believe same-sex sexual activity is outside the boundaries God has set for us” might hold that belief while simultaneously being in the process of discerning how best to respond to an invitation to a gay loved one’s wedding. We try to remember that many people say the things that they say because of something going in their lives. We also try to remember that many people hold certain beliefs after years of earnest thought, prayer, and consideration. After all, that’s the way we’ve come to our own beliefs on any number of concerns.

In thinking about the line between offense and discrimination, we consider the following. Offense is in how the listener receives a message. Discrimination is based on a much broader set of beliefs, attitudes, and actions that render certain individuals and groups of people as being fundamentally different from the rest of humanity. For example, we are profoundly offended by the idea that the Eucharist is only symbol. We believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ; and as such, we know other people who are profoundly offended by our belief on the same topic. However, holding to our belief about Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist is not the same as discriminating against people who believe the Eucharist is symbolic. Someone could rightly call us out as being discriminatory if we argued that Christians who believed in a symbolic Eucharist should not be permitted to develop their Communion practices within their Christian traditions. Equally, someone could rightly call us out as being discriminatory if we believed these Christian traditions should have legal sanctions placed upon them. Discrimination requires a fundamental belief that the speaker is better than the listener. These fundamental beliefs are often manifested in attitudes and actions that seek to marginalize the listener.

To be sure, we acknowledge that there are some things said that are both offensive and discriminatory. Maintaining an active Twitter account means that we’ve seen some pretty unbelievable celebrity guffaws where it is absolutely appropriate for the celebrity to apologize for what he or she has said. However, we’d argue that in most cases, the reason why these celebrities should apologize is that they have said something discriminatory, not because they hold opinions that happen to be offensive to people with different beliefs. Discrimination is everyone’s problem. Offense, however, sometimes says more about the offended than the offender. Being offended by someone’s opinion can bring a great opportunity to ask oneself, “Why does this opinion push my buttons so much? Is this person actually being a jerk, or does this incident of offense reveal something about myself that I need to consider more prayerfully?” In our own lives, we’ve found the latter to be true more often than not.

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