“Is your church an affirming church?’
During my last ten years or so of ministry I got that question a lot. It came from gay and straight people alike. They were asking if our church agreed with same-sex intimacy and gay marriage (affirming) or if we said it was sin that fell short of God’s plan for LGBTQ people’s lives (non-affirming). The deeper assumption was that an affirming church loved and cared for gay people, and a non-affirming church despised and rejected them. Unfortunately the world has trained people to think this way. Somehow agreement and affirmation have become the prerequisites for relationship, and not just in matters of sexuality and gender. If you don’t agree with my politics we can’t be friends. If you don’t affirm my life choices I block you on Twitter. Is there a better way?
I would argue it is possible to acknowledge what people believe and accept them no matter what they have done, without agreeing with their choices or affirming their beliefs.
Acknowledging means listening to someone’s story, validating their experiences, and noticing their pain. Accepting means loving them no matter what, because of who created them and who died for them.
Think about the Samaritan Woman at the Well, one of my favorite stories in the Gospels. John chapter 4 starts with the author telling us that Jesus was leaving Judea and heading up to Galilee. Verse 4 seems simple enough: “He had to pass through Samaria.” But if you know the geography, and the normal route you would take to get from Judea to Galilee, that verse would be very confusing to you! Most people would head east to the Jordan River, then north along the river valley. Or west to the Mediterranean Sea and then north along the coast. Only a fool would set out north through the wilderness to pass through Samaria. And yet that is not only what Jesus did, it is what he HAD to do, according to the text. The word here suggests more than just a necessity, but rather a “divine appointment.” Just a few verses later we find out why.
Jesus is sitting alone at a well. A Samaritan woman approaches, in the heat of the day, and all alone. Again, a shocking thing. Normally women went to the well in the cool of the morning or evening. And they went in a group, providing safety and a time to connect socially with the other women in the community. But this woman is alone and it is noon. Something is obviously wrong. Again, a few verses later we discover the issue. The woman has been married five times, and she is now living with a man outside of marriage! Now before you jump to conclusions, in Jesus’ day a man could divorce a woman for any reason – from infidelity to simply displeasing her husband. So maybe she is promiscuous. Maybe she is a bad cook. We really don’t know the why, but we know the result. She is shunned by the other women in the community. Her pain is not acknowledged and she is not accepted.
Jesus is different. He braves the wilderness to keep his divine appointment with her. He acknowledges her circumstances (“You are right when you say you have no husband…”). He accepts her as a child of God, one for whom he has come to bring salvation and life. Jesus never gives her any indication he agrees with her life choices or affirms her circumstances. But she doesn’t care! She leaves her water jar behind and runs to the village to tell everyone there about the man who, “told me everything I ever did” and yet cared enough about her to reveal himself as the Messiah.
Jesus acknowledged people for who they were, and accepted them unconditionally. We should do the same!
P.S. I am very grateful to author Caleb Kaltenbach for his framing of this issue (acknowledgement and acceptance vs. agreement and affirmation) in his book Messy Truth. Caleb is an author and Christian pastor who was raised as an atheist by two gay parents. He is a powerful voice for believers who seek to show God’s love and grace to the LGBTQ community. I highly recommend both of his books! (The other is entitled Messy Grace.)