The comments made by Christian author Jen Hatmaker regarding homosexuality are still being buzzed about. This time, a former lesbian has decided to weigh in on the controversy.
Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian who converted to Christianity back in 1999, said Hatmaker's affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle would have been dangerous had she heard about it before converting to Christianity.
"If this were 1999 — the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved — instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker's words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead," she wrote for The Gospel Coalition.
"How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, knowledgeable, humble, kind, and funny as Jen saying out loud what my heart was shouting: 'Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church.' My emotional vertigo could find normal once again," she continued.
But believing in those sinful thoughts would have been wrong. Butterfield knows Hatmaker's comments were meant to encourage, not discourage. However, she knows Christians must love their "neighbour enough to speak truth."
Butterfield stressed that for Christians to call out God's sexual ethic as "hate speech" is doing Satan's bidding. The world might be calling on people to make compromises with sin, but Butterfield said the cross never makes an ally with sin.
When people advocate for laws and policies that bless the relationships God considers as sin, then people are acting as if they are more merciful than God is. Butterfield said even Christians have failed miserably in showing true love to those who belong to the LGBT community.
While speaking at church one time, Butterfield said a 75-year-old woman approached her and told her that she had been married to a woman for 50 years, and they even have children and grandchildren together.
"Then she said something chilling," shared Butterfield. "In a hushed voice, she whispered, 'I have heard the gospel, and I understand that I may lose everything. Why didn't anyone tell me this before? Why did people I love not tell me that I would one day have to choose like this?'"
Because most Christians have failed to discern the true nature of the Christian doctrine of sin, Butterfield said they have let their fellow image bearers from the LGBT community down.
"And we all continue to fail miserably. On the biblical side, we often have failed to offer loving relationships and open doors to our homes and hearts, openness so unhindered that we are as strong in loving relationship as we are in the words we wield," she said.
