If you really believe the Bible is the basis for your belief system, then you are going to recognize that God calls homosexuality sin.
And if you operate from that standard, from that description, from that definition, then it’s a matter of ‘how do I communicate truth In love?’
Being loving is not denying the truth. That’s a very unloving thing. Being loving toward somebody is figuring out a sensitive way to communicate the truth. It’s a very unloving thing to say: ‘Well, I’m just going to affirm them [LGBTQ people] and not really tell them the truth.’ So you’re not doing them any good, and you’re not being honest before the Lord or to yourself.
….
It’s really easy to confront someone, even if you do it in a loving way, about something that the culture and God both agree on” but challenging when “the culture is saying the opposite.
Just the fact that you might hold the belief that homosexuality is wrong, you’re going to be labeled a hater, intolerant, a bigot.
You can’t control that. All you can control is: ‘I want to honor God and I want to always be truthful, and so I’m going to look for a gentle and sincere way to communicate truth when necessary when it comes up.
….
If somebody is a pathological liar, [and we tell them], ‘Well, that’s OK, everybody lies.’ Why are you saying that?
Or somebody is a gossip, or somebody is in premarital heterosexual sex, [and you say], ‘Well, that’s OK. You know, we all have urges.’ … Why are we compromising the truth for the sake of just appeasing people?
— Gary Hamrick, pastor of Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia, The Christian Post, Megachurch pastor says it’s ‘very unloving’ for Christians to affirm friends’ LGBT lifestyles, June 8, 2022
Hamrick’s intellectually challenged son, Austin, got in on the lovefest, saying:
The phrase: ‘Love is Love’ is not a very stable motto to stand on. I mean, I love a lot of things that are not beneficial for me. My daughter, she’s 4. She loves to run in the middle of the road. And if she just said, ‘Hey, love is love. Why would you infringe on what I love to do?’ Well, it’s because I know that there are harmful consequences to her love for running in the middle of the road.
“You love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Now, to indulge in a lifestyle of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, there might be some harmful consequences to that.”
[The younger Hamrick said Christians should look to the Bible to find what is truly “good love.”]
God says [about] how we should flourish in our sexuality and in relationships.
Love is love means you should affirm everything that I want or desire. … It’s not true love. True love is to will the good of another.
Sure sounds like the elder Hamrick dropped his son on his head when he was young.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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