Pastoral Gagnon: Day 30
Author: Andrew Comiskey
November 12, 2020
‘Ultimately, it is the
individual homosexual who suffers in his or her relationship to God when the
church shirks its duty to call a sin a sin. Far from being an unloving act,
a sensitive refusal to condone homosexual conduct is the responsible and loving
thing to do. The church deceives homosexuals by affirming a lifestyle that God
deems to be sin. It is a nice, easy way out. No one is offended, the arguments
go away, the tension dissipates—all at the “minimal” cost of forestalling the
redemptive work of Christ. God did not offer up Jesus Christ for the purpose of
rubber stamping and affirming all human desires. Christ died in order that
human beings might be reconciled to God and begin the process of sanctification
that will ultimately lead to glorification.’ (The Bible and Homosexual
Practice, p. 484)
‘To denounce same-sex
intercourse and then stop short of actively and sacrificially reaching out in
love and concern to homosexuals is to have as truncated a gospel as those
who mistake God’s love for “accepting people as they are” and who avoid talk of
the gospel’s transformative power.
It is to forget the costly and
self-sacrificial work of God in our lives, past and ongoing.’
(The Bible and Homosexual
Practice, p. 492)
‘This book has been aimed
at showing that affirming same-sex intercourse is not an act of love, however
well-meaning the intent. That road leads to death: physically, morally, and
spiritually. Promoting the homosexual “rights” agenda is an awful and harmful
waste of the church’s energies and resources. What does constitute an act of
love is befriending the homosexual while withholding approval of homosexual
behavior…, pursuing in love homosexuals while bearing the abuse that will
inevitably come with opposing homosexual practice…The real difficulty for the
church lies not in assessing whether the Bible’s stance toward same-sex
intercourse is unremittingly negative…No,
the real difficulty for the church
lies in the pastoral dimension: the “nuts and bolts,” day-to-day compassionate
response to people whose sexual actions are recognized to be sinful and harmful
to themselves, to the church, and to society at large.’
(The Bible and Homosexual
Practice, p. 493)
Here we come to Gagnon’s
main intent: to offer a clear and redemptive way for ‘homosexuals’ to know
Jesus through repenting of sexual sin and (re)discovering Jesus’ love. That is
only possible if: we work hard on becoming effective pastoral arms of Jesus for
them, and second, we do persons the hard favor of refusing ‘gay’ behavior as
God’s best for him or her.
As Gagnon says well, the Church deceives persons
by condoning what God does not.
He broadens the call to
all of us: have we forgotten the costly work that Jesus did to transform us? The
deaths we died in order to live for Him? We know for sure that only His Love
made the way for us to let go of lesser loves. We need to realize that
conformity to Jesus takes a big God who condescends to our littleness. We
choose whether we will humble ourselves and so allow Him to raise us.
How
can we not travail for our ‘gay’ friends who need to know that choice as much
as we did?
Let us not be intimidated.
Jesus’ love is far more fulfilling than any LGBTQ+ alternative. For Jesus’ sake
and for the best option possible for our wayward friend, let us offer a loving
glimpse of this Jesus who never gave up on us.
May each friend see in our
faces, hear in our voices, witness in our actions, truth-in-love. Jesus is
better than anything this world offers: for us, for all.
‘Jesus, thank You for this
brilliant, tender man whose work clears the way for us to love sexual sinners
well. May we do so, Jesus-style. In mercy, use Your evident design in creation
to call confused and deceived and hurting persons back to You. Make our joy
complete as we share with You in this Kingdom adventure.’
‘Jesus, show us Your way
through the uneven, deeply divided ground of our nation. Please compose and restrain explosive
hearts. Use us as instruments of Your
peace. “O blood and water which gushed
forth from the heart of Savior Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, we trust in
You.”’
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