My Two Cents: The Nashville Statement

America today ... some in Texas have just come through the worst hurricane ever to arrive on our shores; some are homeless, many are jobless, some have died. Our president viewed a trip to the region as a campaign stop—“Look at the crowds!”—and has treated his presidency as a money-making scheme and a chance to discriminate against anyone who doesn’t look like the ‘us’ he pictures in his mind.’ Mexicans are rapists, Muslims are terrorists, trans Americans are unfit, but neo-Nazis and white supremacists, at least some of them, are nice folks.

Our country is more divided than at any time in recent memory and so this is a time when many folks turn toward their faith to find some sense in it all, to find a way through this darkness. But what are our so-called “Christian” leaders doing?

And don’t get me started on Joel Osteen turning his back on flood victims until Twitter shamed him; that’s disgusting enough.

No, our evangelical leaders, our ALLEGED men, and women, of God, have released The Nashville Statement—which as I found out, is not an indictment of that TV show because Rayna died.

The Nashville Statement wasn’t created to bring us together, to help our friends and families in Texas and Louisiana who are in need; it wasn’t written to help us combat the KKK and Nazis marching in the streets; it doesn’t ask us to help fight bigotry and intolerance, anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican hate. No, the Nashville Statement condones, promotes and praises hate, against the LGBT community.

It’s just so Christ-like ... these “articles” of The Nashville Statement:

Article 1

WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church.

WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God.

Article 2

WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.

WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.

Article 3

WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female.

WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal in dignity or worth.

Article 4

WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

WE DENY that such differences are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.

Article 5

WE AFFIRM that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female.

WE DENY that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.

Article 6

WE AFFIRM that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers. They are acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known.

WE DENY that ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex render one incapable of living a fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.

Article 7

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

Article 8

WE AFFIRM that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in purity of life.

WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

Article 9

WE AFFIRM that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant and toward sexual immorality— a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality.

WE DENY that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral behavior.

Article 10

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

Article 11

WE AFFIRM our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or about one another as male or female.

WE DENY any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor God’s design of his imagebearers as male and female.

Article 12

WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming power, and that this pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give power for holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin.

Article 13

WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender selfconceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.

WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will.

Article 14

WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure.

WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.

It all boils down to this: LGBT people are bad.

The Nashville Statement boasts about 150 initial signers—you can find all their names HERE—and almost all of the 150 or so asshats and wingnuts and so-called “Christians” support Donald Trump, a man who doesn't have a clue about the Bible, is probably the least "Christian" president America has ever had, a man who has been married three times, committed adultery at least once, that we know of, has been divorced twice, and has admitted he does not ask God for forgiveness.

They support this man, but it’s the LGBTQ community that they fear most.

And, you know, just in case you didn’t think the signers of this piece of Christian hate could not appear more ignorant and foolish, one of the signers, Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a highly-influential Christian evangelical leader, says the Articles of The Nashville Statement are not words of hate, but of love:

"I was a signer of ... the Nashville Statement, a document adopted by a group of evangelical Christians seeking to reaffirm traditional Christian values on sexuality. ... One of the most intense lines of criticism was that we, signers of the document, dismiss the pain and suffering of those who live outside those historic Biblical sexual norms. That we weren’t acknowledging the rejection they feel in the church and were making their sins appear more significant than our own. ... In releasing the Nashville Statement, we in fact are acting out of love and concern for people who are increasingly confused about what God has clarified in Holy Scripture."

Love and concern, while telling the LGBT community that we don’t have the right to marry, to have children, to even love the people we love.

But, oddly enough, as a so-called “Christian,” Mohler and The Nashville Statement doesn’t address divorce, adultery, child abuse; he doesn’t seem bothered by an adulterous pussy-grabbing anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim president, but he thinks trans persons are the greatest threat to America and that my marriage is some kind of abomination.

In other words, he's doing what evangelical Christians have been doing for decades: calling LGBT people sinners while claiming their "truth"—which is mostly just hate, condemnation and judgment—is love.

There are millions of Americans in Texas and Louisiana who are literally under water right now, millions of Americans who have lost everything, millions facing loss of health care coverage, millions of American children waking up hungry every day and going to bed starving, millions working in jobs that don't pay living wage, being forced to work two, three, four or more jobs just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, millions affected by gun violence, by hate marching in the streets and yet this band of “Christians” wants to release a statement denouncing LGBT Americans simply because we’ve asked for, and received some, equality.

And what Mohler and his fellow signers don’t seem to realize, because they are too busy keeping her heads buried in the sands of the 1950s, and even earlier, is that more  and more Americans see them for what they are: not as Christians, but as extremists, bigots, and haters.

God is watching these men, and women, and She is not happy.

And you know how I know that? I live in one of the most religious states in this country—it’s practically the buckle on the Bible belt—where, when you meet people, they ask you two questions:

Where are you from

Where do you worship

And yet these people, these folks whose lives sometimes revolve around their churches, look at Carlos and me as a couple, as a married couple, as just their neighbors, their friends, and their co-workers. They don’t look at us with hate or disgust; that’s reserved for the little men and women who signed that vile statement.

And there aren’t that many of them.