Rage Continued... Multiplied by 10,000

I have struggled over the past few days on how I should put this into words. No words I put down seem to capture my own rage, incredulity, and disappointment, as well as the absolute gravity of this situation.

I wrote the other day about the policy change from World Vision that would have allowed homosexual Christians to be employed and serve the poor. I want to reiterate that this policy change was in no way World Vision’s endorsement of homosexuality as moral or good. They were merely stating that it is a theological position with significant complexity and disagreement among American Christians. They wanted to allow those gay Christians the same opportunity to serve the poor as heterosexual Christians.

Despite World Vision rescinding the policy change and publicly apologizing to the evangelical fundamentalist community for leading them to believe that World Vision doesn't respect the authority of Scripture, ten thousand children have lost their sponsorship.

I should repeat that because it might have just washed over you.

10,000 children who were being provided food and medicine (among other things) are now without.

I am blown away that in a world of such enormous surfeit I have to say this, but ONE CHILD GOING WITHOUT IS TOO MUCH. Ten thousand children being dumped is unconscionable.

And for what? A dogmatic position based on some overgrown sense of the immorality of homosexuality. And a complete lack of humility recognizing the uncertainty of its “sinfulness.” But I think it is also some sadistic attempt at boundary maintenance.

This is why conservative Christian radio host is calling World Vision apostates. Or why seminary professors are excommunicating World Vision via Twitter. Or why the Southern Baptist Convention is deeming World Vision heterodox.

Boundary maintenance is nothing new. Defining who is a Christian and who is not has been around as long as the church has – in fact its roots were a struggle of figuring out whether the followers of Jesus were something new or just a small subset of Judaism.

What is blowing me away here is not that evangelicals are so gung-ho about defining Christian identity, but the lengths they are going to do it. Not only are they willing to show the world that starving, vulnerable children are political pawns to be used to bully their social and theological agenda, but they are also drawing the exclusionary boundary much closer than many people expected.

As evidenced by the above linked responses, not only are homosexuals not Christian (or at least not “Christian enough”), but those who acknowledge the complexity, ambiguity, or even divided state of that subject in the church are also excluded. According to them, to be a Christian you MUST exclude homosexuals from working for the Kingdom of God and you MUST acknowledge that the theological question of homosexuality is both non-controversial and a staple of orthodox belief.

I have tremendous problems with narrowly defining “Christian” and excluding diversity, but that problem is only amplified when the result is so obviously destructive. Drawing the line on who gets to be a Christian and who doesn't – at the very least – shouldn't result in 10,000 poor children having their food and medicine taken away.

But I also wonder why this theological issue is the standard for defining what it means to be a Christian. Or why is ANY belief a standard?

Jesus taught that people would know we are his followers if we have love for one another. That’s an action, not a belief.

He also taught that when we feed, clothe, heal, and comfort the poor, in a mystical way, we do this for Jesus as well. And when we fail to do these things, we have turned our back on Christ himself.

World Vision and the gay Christians attempting to work at this ministry – according to the words of Jesus in the Gospels – are following Jesus not only in example, but are also offering compassion and service to Christ himself. When the evangelical fundamentalist community turns their back on 10,000 poor children, they turn their back on Jesus – by his own testimony.

If there is not a clearer standard defining what it means to be a follower of Christ, I don’t know what is.