Hey Scot, thanks for posting these reviews. I have been holding off buying new books to try to reduce my ?book? budget, but this book sounds awesome and I am going to order it today. I became deeply dissatisfied with the evangelical response to the gay community several years ago and since beginning graduate studies I have acquired several wonderful gay friends. I have always felt at a loss to know what to tell them about a ?Christian? perspective on their situation and the only thing I have known to do is to try to be a good friend. Marin?s approach sounds like something that might be helpful to me in this process. I?m on my way to amazon.com now.

I think it starts by traditionalists adjusting their thinking and recognizing that gays, as are all people, God’s creations. Regardless of sexual orientation or other attributes that we might find offensive, at the end of the day each person is made in the image of God. That alone is a start to transforming how we treat one another.

This series is very good, Scot. I have never even thought about the “domino of associations” that he describes. Interesting. Thanks for this.

Very good to know. I know Ed Dobsen here in Grand Rapids (Michigan) has been well known for the good relationship Calvary Church had with the gay community here. Wouldn’t it be good if we evangelicals who see Scripture in an orthodox, conservative way on this issue, were known for our love, and being WITH gays, like Pastor Ed.

Those churches which shun gays (almost all of them here in the south) have missed a great opportunity. As James so often taught (A Brother’s Wisdom) the church has not taught us to give flesh to faith with good works, especially the protestant church and especially with gays. My gay classmate who comitted suicide in the 1960′s and student who comitted suicide in the 1980′s are a tiny, tiny part of that alienated, self-hating, cheerless gay minority who internalized the culture’s and church’s homophobia. Those who were most religious were the most likely to be the most alienated because the churches (and sometimes a gay kids own parents) saw them outside the boundaries of love, charity, and purity in the same way the pharisees and sadducees saw the dying man at the side of the road beyond the boudaries of purity and love. No wonder the percentage of gay adolescents who attempted suicide was (and is) much higher than the for heterosexual population. Without the church (and often their own parents) to give them boundaries and the reality of being loved, and having to hide their orientation, it’s remarkable to me how many became wonderfully productive members of society. I’m so thankful for my gay friends (and so other gays whom I read or read about) who have in so many cases transformed their own unjust suffering into a life of service to others or art or science that inspires us.
I imagine that today’s gays are less alienated because the internet’s social meeting places like Facebook allow acceptance of differences, do not require hiding one’s sexual orientation and provide community. I hope I’m right because the church, until recently, has been a complete failure and the cause of misery for many.
Doug

To address the subject of this post, ‘terminology’, here’s what I can relate as a gay Christian in an evangelical congregation.
The word ‘homosexual’ may set of the domino chain described above, but it also is problematic because its use seems to emphasise the ‘sex’ of homosexual. As a (thus far) celibate gay man, sexual activity has very little to do with my ‘gayness’ and little to do with how I am viewed by other Christians who know of my orientation.
There are other stings for gay christians as well in terminology. One of my own pastors repeatedly uses the term ‘pansy’ for a weak or ineffectual person (or I should say ‘man’, as he’s never used the term in regard to a woman) with nary of thought of its association as an anti-gay slur.
I stand by the dictum that it’s probably best to use the terminology preferred by the person you’re conversing with, if at possible. I will use ‘homosexual’ with conservatives for this reason, but prefer ‘gay’ when referring to myself.