The Chick-Fil-A day on Wednesday, followed by the kiss-in yesterday--whew, boy, I'm glad both sides were able to effectively show their love for chicken! Dan Cathy answered a question accurately and well, then many who disagree with what he said (or thought he said) overreacted, then many who agreed with what he said (or thought he said) overreacted in response to the first overreaction.
It's been fun, challenging and disheartening to read all of the flapping about this plucky issue. (Sorry, couldn't resist...) All in all I'm still not sure what I believe about it, other than both (or multiple?) sides in this issue got many things wrong. But this post isn't really about CFA, it's about something I read as I perused the news. One blog I read (www.matthewpaulturner.net) got a response from someone at Biola, and there was a quote the responder said that I couldn't resist giving a little bit of a rant about.
In response to Turner's statement that a bunch of Christians heading to CFA last Wednesday may say a lot of things, but it doesn't say "I love you" to someone in the gay community, the responder disagreed, hinting that it might have been "tough love", and suggested, as his first alternative way of showing love to homosexuals, to "warmly invite them to church..."
I know a lot of people who love Jesus and love his community of saints, but still wouldn't see a warm invitation to church as the first way they think of to show love to people they disagree with. I know solid believers that wouldn't necessarily feel loved if THEY got invited to someone's church, warmly or not.
How about warmly invite them to dinner?
Warmly invite them to a round of golf?
To coffee?
To your kids' birthday party?
Surely there could have been a better way to show love than invite to church. Or to have headed to Chick-Fil-A.
1 comment:
The truth is that inviting someone to church, while certainly not wrong and definitely important, says to me that "I've got to get you in a place where your sin can be fixed." But is that what most people would respond to, would see as a display of love? Or would it be to be invited into someone's life, so that we can live together, loving each other in spite of our brokenness, and see how God might work on us together?
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