Christians I Like With a Billboard Message to the Bigots.
Feast your eyes on this billboard put up by Missiongathering Christian Church:
From their Blog:
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With the passage of Proposition 8 in California banning gay marriage, the Church has successfully taken away the rights of a group human beings…the first time this has ever happened in the state of California. Yes, it was accomplished through the political system, but it was the conservative church that started the movement. While Missiongathering Christian Church is part of the Church (all churches in the world), the conservative churches who started, funded, and propelled Prop 8 do not speak for all churches. Some Christians do not speak for ALL Christians. We as a church feel called to be a new voice of Christianity.This “issue” has begun to create some division within the Church, but that conversation will always be there and will likely take decades to find resolution, if it ever does. Our concern is the ever-widening gap between the Church and the LGBT community and its supporters. With the campaigning and passage of Prop 8, that gap is widening at an even faster rate. Gay and lesbian men and women who may have been open to the message of Jesus, heterosexual people who support the LGBT community who may be seeking faith and spirituality now have seen the Church exclude a group of people based on their sexual identity in the name of God. Why would they want to have anything to do with a God like that? It’s not an “issue;” it’s people
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Somehow I don’t imagine the people running those other churches want us to “have anything to do with a God like that”. They just want us to submit to their will and remain crushed under their boot heels. “God” is just the weapon they use. If we kowtow to their god in the process all the better for them–to keep us in line.
As a leadership team, we spent a lot of time wrestling with the words to use in writing this statement. We realize that many will take offense to the wording, but strong words are needed in a time like this. As we look at the life and ministry of Jesus, we see repeatedly where He would use strong words to rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees when they would use religion to exclude the outcasts from participating in the story of God: hypocrites, foolish, unmarked graves, white-washed tombs, brood of vipers. The most memorable, of course, being when Jesus turned over the tables of those selling animals and changing money in the temple courts who, by doing so, were barring many from participating in worship. Jesus responded with righteous anger.
We are not saying that all people who voted yes on Prop 8 are narrow-minded, judgmental, manipulative, or deceptive. Individuals are entitled to their convictions. When one’s convictions are acted upon someone else against his/her will, the act takes on a different quality. The word “actions” was used specifically because the act of voting yes on this measure was narrow-minded and judgmental. The actions of the proponents of Prop 8 were manipulative and deceptive in their use of misinformation, half-truths, hyperbole, and the gross exploitation of children and fear to advance their cause. These actions, done in the name of God, took away the rights and equality of thousands of California men and women.
All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you Missiongathering Christian Church. It’s high time the RRRWers were taken firmly to task for their hijacking of God, Jesus and Christianity by members of their own faith. This is something people like myself have been waiting for.
