Brotherly Love in Action

The last blog I posted said something about "loving brotherly in the city of brotherly love," or something to that effect. (I could just go check, but that would require me pressing the back button a few times, which I just don't feel like doing.) Anyway, the point is, I've been thinking quite a lot about how do I love well. Particularly, what does it look like for the church to love well. I am reading Andrew Marin's book right now, Love is an Orientation, which is particularly focused on how Christians can and should love the GLBT community. Personally, I think we have dropped the bomb in this area. If we don't come out and say how wrong it is that people are gay, we usually at least internalize something like, "It's just gross or disgusting that anyone would want to do that." I am ashamed to say that I ABSOLUTELY have been a part of both groups before. I started wondering how many of us (by us I mean Christians who believe the Bible is inerrant and believe that in it's inerrancy says no to same-sex sexual relations) have ever sought to understand the GLBT community's perspective before we seek to explain why they are wrong. I know I have not. I can count at least twenty conversations I have had that enhance my apologetic of why it's wrong or joke about how silly it is to defend GLBT with Scripture. The problem is I've never even used this apologetic because I've never discussed or dialogued with someone who holds a different view than I do on same-sex relations. On one level, I am afraid that I would not know how to discuss and dialogue; I am much more comfortable debating and arguing. I really think that's a pretty bogus stance to take though. I don't think that "selective loving" can function alongside "loving well." Though I certainly have failed the people that mean the most to me, I would not hesistate to say that I have "loved them well" in general. But I definitely could not say the same thing about my GLBT friends and acquaintances, who do not see eye to eye with me on all things. I think it's time that I, and the Church as a whole, begins an attempt to love well. For me, this is going to require a step or two into the unknown, stepping outside of the Christian subculture and into a world full of people who are desperate for a Savior and fed up with Christians who carry the "Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" mentality. Loving well may not be easy or comfortable, but it is 100% necessary. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.