Welcome love/I have made a place for you here/I know every word they say/I know how they want to make you change/Change if you want, but don't you go and change for me/I will love you as you are/I didn't mean to make you want to go and leave/It's a fight between my heart and mind/no one really wins this time/If you don't find the love you want, if I have acted ungracefully, I don't want to see you go/I never meant to make you want to leave/But go if you want/Make your way straight to the door/I hope that you look back before you go 'cause grace looks back before it starts to leave/In the fight between my heart and mind, no one really wins this time/In the endless fight of grace and pride I don't want to win this time.

That's the song I was just listening to by Copeland, called "No One Really Wins". In an interview the lead singer did with Circle Six Magazine, he touched on it really briefly, saying this:

I just believe that there's a place in the church for everyone. That's pretty much what the song was talking about. I don't want to get too much into it, but it's basically about being accepting. The line, "change if you want / but don't you go and change for me / I will love you as you are / I didn't mean to make you want to leave," pretty much that's just about…if you believe homosexuality is wrong but you want to love people, you can't just sit there and tell them, "I'm not going to love you until you change."

When I first heard the song, I had known what it was about, but still found it challenging to listen to. It amazes me how unlike Jesus I can be, especially in how I treat homosexuals. And when I look around at how others treat them, I am amazed even more. It isn't that I don't believe it's wrong; I do. What bothers me is how homosexuals have been villianized to this point where they somehow deserve the specially ordained hate of the Church.

The other night some friends were over and we were watching The Amazing Race (a reality TV show, in case you didn't already know that). One of the teams on the show is a gay couple. On this episode they were doing really well, and one friend (who, I will note, is currently attending Bible College to become a pastor) made the comment that he really hoped "the fags" didn't win, and that he also hated people who "talked with that girly voice". Another friend spoke up and told us that he felt like boycotting the show because of the gay guys. After all, "why would they even let people like that on the show?" I was blown away. This coming from two guys who'd call themselves Christians -- ie. Christ Followers.

It isn't new, this attitude of contempt for homosexuals by the Church. You'd have to have your head buried to have not heard or seen some form of disrespect and hate towards homosexuals by Christians. (How about the website, GodHatesFags.com, in case you wanted an example, albeit an extreme one). But it breaks my heart. I don't understand where it comes from. I don't understand how people can carry the banner of Jesus Christ and still treat human beings with such lack of compassion.

I'm not defending homosexual behavior. I'm not trying to gloss over what the Bible teaches on it. What I am defending, though, is homosexual people. Where was it in the history of the Church that we decided to forego Jesus' command to love our neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40), and instead pick up our pitchforks and protest signs and burn them at the stake? How far from being like Jesus can we go before we can no longer call ourselves Christians? I feel like we've been testing the limits on that for some time now.

I doubt there are even a significant number of Christians who have any sort of [positive] relationship with homosexuals. We've dug our trenches so deep, and carried our doctrine so proudly, I'm less-than-hopeful that there are even a few Christians willing to put their pride behind them, put down their Theological clubs, and embrace a homosexual. I know I’d have a hard time with it. I am very aware that I have no homosexual friends (that I know of). I shy away from it. I have too many prejudices, too much of an 'image' to lower myself to such a position. There is a limit to how accepting we are of people, right? I mean, Jesus had his limits, didn't he?

That's just it. I don't see that in the Gospels. I don't see Jesus putting His foot down and saying, "Hi. My name is Jesus. It's nice to meet you. Before we get too far in, I should warn you: I can't get close to you unless you stop being like that." What was one thing that characterized Him? He accepted people. He didn't let walls divide them. How could GOD get close to prostitutes, terrorists (after all, were not Zealots terrorists?), scumbags and thieves? Not to mention powerful people, rich people, men of authority? Jesus had no limits. Jesus didn't make people change before he loved and accepted them. It wasn't that he ignored the sin. But he knew that people don't respond to judgement. People don't need another finger pointing at them.

There's the old Christian mantra, "Love the sinner. Hate the sin." We seem to flap our gums a lot about that. Everyone wants to think they know how to do that. But history tells us it isn't so. We don't honestly distinguish between sin and sinner. Well, not unless it's one of our friends who struggles with pornography or greed or lying or cheating. In those cases, well, those are special. We know the difference, right? But gay people! No way! They are too different from us normal folk.

Like I mentioned before, I'm not arguing that homosexuality is an a-ok way to live. I'm saying that we have taken on more authority than we were ever given. God didn't tell us to go and convict our neighbor of his sin, to show him the error of his way. We were called to preach the good news -- the mercy, grace, love of God. That each one of us is a sinner, a miserable failure, and yet God has chosen to save us. Why can I not try to show that same love for my fellow man, despite his faults?

I think we as Christians forget what it is to be human. We forget that we all are ancestors of a sinful man and woman. We all suffer for it. Homosexuals are human beings too, relatives to the same man and woman! It seems like a simple enough truism, but more often than not we seem to make them into abstract ideas, problems that can be solved through a few easy steps, or by chanting the right prayer seven times.

The challenge is the same for all of us: to apply what Jesus taught to real life. It isn't easy. Most of the time I'm the furthest thing from being like Jesus. But I want to be like Him, and I want to learn to love people like He did. I have no excuses. Maybe my challenge, now, is to love those people who call themselves my brothers, but don't have the slightest clue what the word 'love' means. Now that is hard to do.