I’ve been pretty rude to W.P. “Bill” Campbell. First, in Judging By Its Cover the New Book, “Turning Controversy into Church Ministry: A Christlike Response to Homosexuality,” I wrote that his book has “a better chance of sprouting wings and flying to Mongolia than it has of saying one single new, bold, or even vaguely interesting thing about homosexuality.” I also said it was typical of why Christian book publishing is continuing to “sink into the morass of its own mediocrity.”
Sure, I’ve been honest. But since when is honesty the best friend of civility?
In one of his comments to my post about his book, Bill wrote, “When I describe ‘brokenness,’ I do so around the contention that we are a broken people in a broken world. I call church members and leaders to realize that they are on a level playing field with gays and lesbians. We each have our weaknesses and struggles.”
To which all I can say say is, aaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh.
After chastising me for not taking seriously enough the relationship between LGBTers and Christians, Bill (inexplicably) said that he had read each my posts at Love Jesus? Hate Bigotry? I assume that means he read the first post listed there, How is Being Gay Like Gluing Wings on a Pig?
I’m sure Bill’s a very busy guy. (At the very least I imagine he’s now spending more time vetting bloggers to whom he makes overtures to review his book.) So perhaps he so quickly read “How is Being Gay Like Gluing Wings on a Pig?” that he missed its entire point.
So, to recap that post: Saying that being gay is just like any other condition of “brokenness”—that it’s just like any of the “weaknesses and struggles” with which everyone contends—is a failure of logic so profound, egregious, and ridiculously obvious that it could only be asserted by a person who has long ago surrendered rationale (not to mention compassion) to dogma.
One more time, Bill: Homosexuality is no more like every other sin than a seahorse is like Seabiscuit. Every other sin—every other sort of “brokenness”—doesn’t deliver its perpetrator into a condition of having to live without love. Adultery, drunkenness, thievery, wife abuse, child molestation, murder … you can commit any of those sins, and still no one would claim that you’ve lost your natural right to fully love and be loved by your spouse.
But if you’re gay? Then you’re supposed to live never knowing any love more intimate than platonic love. (Cue Soup Nazi voice): No spouse for you! No holding hands, no cuddling, no sleeping together, no physical intimacy of any sort. (Unless it’s with someone to whom you’re not actually physically attracted. Sure, you won’t like it much—but at least it’ll be some contact.)
If you’re gay, you’re supposed to live your life alone. Isolated. Cold. Separate.
You know: just like Jesus hoped everyone would live.
Bill also wrote on my blog, “I challenge each of you to make sure that you aren’t helping to foster the polarization that has a lock hold on our country.”
I say, polarize away. Let all of us who understand who Christ really was do everything in our power to create so much space between ourselves and those who, in Christ’s name, create real polarization, that, God willing, eventually we won’t be able to see or hear them at all.
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You might also like (or hate): Toward a Christianity of Common Sense.
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