by Rev Benjamin Fong (2020)

What are hurtful behaviours by Christians that make LGBT persons feel unwelcomed or condemned in the Church, and what are actions by LGBT activists that make churches feel attacked?

Synopsis

     Christians have often failed to consider the LGBT person as a person in engaging with the issue of sexuality. This has led to an adversarial approach that either attacks LGBT persons or downplays their pain. This manifests in the exclusion of LGBT persons from a significant part of the life of the Church, both within individual congregations and at the macro, national level. LGBT persons often leave churches wounded by the words and actions of pastors and leaders. Yet churches often respond in this way out of a fear of what is happening around the world, apprehensive that the trajectories of other societies will be emulated in Singapore. This has not been without reason and the common developments around the world add weight to that concern. The media, both mainstream and social, has not been kind to Christians, but Christians feel obliged to speak up for they feel is for the welfare of the nation, especially in order to protect the vulnerable of society, in particular children. The way forward will involve humility on the part of the Christian, regardless of ideological convictions, to consider the concerns of others in any further engagement on this issue.

Introduction

Public square issues in our present age are often reduced to faceless ideological arguments, put forward not so much to advance robust debate on the issue, but to reinforce the echo chamber of convictions already held. In theory, the Christian way of engagement transcends the problem by adopting a posture of humility – considering the “other” to be better than ourselves and prioritising their interests over ours.1It should not surprise that what we know in our head tends to resist being sent to our heart; engaging in debate with humility must therefore happen by design.

      To that end, this article attempts to highlight two interests often raised in any discussion on the place of LGBT Christians in the Church: What are hurtful behaviours that make LGBT persons feel unwelcomed or condemned in the Church, and what are actions by LGBT activists that make churches feel attacked? While these two questions are certainly not an exhaustive representation of the concerns of LGBT persons and churches, they are among the most common concerns.

      The views and anecdotes expressed in this essay are drawn primarily from separate conversations with two parties often thought to embody one of these two perspectives. Resisting the urge to make unhelpful comparisons to corners of a ring, the first of the two are the Revs Miak Siew and Pauline Ong, pastors of Free Community Church (FCC), a church that openly affirms LGBT persons and their sexuality. The second party is Timothy Weerasekera, part of the full-time team at Cornerstone Community Church (CCC), a church that has been at the forefront of the traditional Christian response to LGBT sexuality. In the spirit of Philippians 2:3-4, both parties were asked to respond to both questions.

Hurtful Behaviours

6Hurtful Behaviours

      We begin with the first question. It would take quite a feat of denial to say that LGBT persons have not been hurt by the actions of Christians. These wounds have come largely from an inability to see the person beneath the LGBT label, reducing the person to aspects of that person’s behaviour.  Siew and Ong  shared frustrations of being on the receiving end of open letters and accusations of being false shepherds and prophets, accusations that not only wounded them but also the faith of their congregation. A prayer prayed in a worship service of a large church, in the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, lamented that the victims “would not be with their loved ones forever”, on account of many being part of the LGBT community.

      “You don’t know us” was a phrase that summarised the problem – Christians have tended to talk down to LGBT persons rather than to listen and engage with the other as a person. Consequently, since Christians were addressing issues rather than persons, actual cases of prejudice and homophobia get downplayed or even pushed beyond the peripheries. While it may be a lot safer to come out as gay in the present time, this is by no means a universal experience and there remain among some closeted LGBT persons a genuine fear and a heavy price to pay within certain circles and careers.

     Weerasekera would be among the first to agree, acknowledging how much of the initial response from Christians in Singapore failed to address the humanity of LGBT persons. This however came not out of malice but because the lack of open discussion on the issue presented a chicken-and-egg problem of Christians never learning how to hold in tension both the worth and the mandate of the person.

     The lack of recognition of the LGBT person’s humanity wrought two unfortunate consequences within the Church: an omission of LGBT persons from the life of the Church, and a slew of unhelpful approaches to discipleship.

      LGBT persons who come out often find themselves removed from positions of organisational or liturgical leadership and are often relegated to minor roles within the Church. Sermons urging Christians to be faithful to their churches with their “prayers, presence, gifts, and service” are often accompanied by a footnote disqualifying a person on the basis of sexuality. In theory, the same principle of qualification for ministry applies to other ways of life that compromise the witness of the ministry, but in practice this principle seems applied far more readily when it concerns an LGBT person. I recall having once been given the regrettable task of asking an LGBT choir member, in the early hours of an Easter morning, to withdraw from singing in the choir on account of the stir her sexuality was causing. Not quite the Easter message I expected to preach.

      This exclusion occurs not just at individual but also ecclesial levels. At the height of the Circuit Breaker, churches around the world banded together in a remarkable marriage of nationalism and faith to (quite literally) sing a blessing over each nation; Singapore was no exception, though FCC was conspicuously absent, having not received the proverbial memo. At the macro level FCC has been unable to join the National Council of Churches in Singapore (NCCS), and therefore does not have official representation before the Government. This handicap became a problem particularly in the frenzy of dialogue in the weeks leading up to the Circuit Breaker – the NCCS invited FCC to participate in some dialogues and shared information received from the Government, but not being on the official mailing list meant that updates were received first from local news media rather than the NCCS.

      Not surprisingly, the work of Truelove.is has been controversial within the LGBT community and was highlighted by Siew and Ong as an example of an unhelpful approach to discipling LGBT Christians. Many in the LGBT community found the use of LGBT symbols offensive, a “hijacking” of these symbols for a different kind of messaging, perceived to be more for the benefit of Christians in the churches than the actual LGBT community.

      The stories of success and breakthrough, a cornerstone (forgive me) of the Truelove.is message, and an approach used by many churches, also has the problem of being self-selecting. In the words of Siew, these churches and movements have so many success stories because the failures leave, with some going to FCC instead – and this was said not out of pride but out of a frustration that FCC has to deal with the aftermath of such failure. Ong shared anecdotes of a friend who was made to go through a deliverance session just before his baptism, when he confided in a pastor; another person was held up publicly by a church as an “overcomer”, but subsequently left the church and shared that he found real healing only after leaving. It appears that a collaborative effort between FCC and Truelove.is would go a long way to dispelling accusations of a self-selection bias on either side.

Threatening Actions

      Such a collaboration would certainly go against the public image of LGBT activists locked in a dualistic struggle against religion, in particular Christians. 2 Talk of a “gay agenda” pursued by LGBT activists is often rubbished in public discourse, but the smoke does not arise from a vacuum. One does not have to believe that a nefarious cabal of leaders are puppeteering world events from the shadows, in order to be concerned with how history presents a consistent progression of events across the world, in both Western and Eastern hemispheres. These events have uncannily followed the shape of a “game plan” proposed by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen in After the Ball - a plan involving the normalisation of gay sexuality and the villainization of those who oppose it, wielding the tools of the media and legislation.3

      Regardless of whether these developments happen as a result concerted human effort or a natural progression of sociology, one cannot deny that our experiences in Singapore have adopted similar contours: to do so would require as audacious a denial as saying that LGBT persons have not been hurt by Christians.

     Siew and Ong recognised this concern and shared the example of the media breaking trust when a journalist went undercover to write an exposé on a Christian conference. The exposé highlighted statements perceived to contravene the religious and racial harmony of Singapore, and then drew irrelevant links to Christian support for Section 377A of the Penal Code.4

       Still, the media has thus far shown relative restraint in terms of LGBT activism – but the same cannot be said of the Wild West of social media. Christian leaders who voice concerns and objections over the reforms advocated by LGBT activists often find themselves roasted by comments from faceless and even anonymous profiles. More recently Truelove.is came under the spotlight amidst accusations of advocating conversion therapy, a phrase linked with long debunked pseudo-medical techniques that purported to change a person’s sexuality. 5The spurious accusation proved the adage that no publicity is bad publicity, though it remains to be seen if Truelove.is will one day be cancelled by social media.

      Weerasekera sees all these as consistent with developments in other nations and argues that the Christian response to LGBT activists arises not simply as a knee-jerk reaction to a different worldview, but out of a Christian responsibility to seek the welfare of society. He argues that the empirical evidence demonstrates that the reforms and changes advocated by LGBT activists ultimately bring more harm than good, particularly to one of the most vulnerable groups in society – the children. The legalisation of same-sex marriage is often followed by the right for same-sex couples to adopt children – raising problematic questions about how such family dynamics affect the development of children. In his words, “the creation of structures for the pleasure of adults affects the quality of life for children.”

     This extends beyond family planning but also how society views and forms our children. He cites Taiwan as an example, where Taiwanese schools began a syllabus of sex education that encouraged children to explore their sexuality and promoted gender re-assignment surgery, even before same-sex marriage was legalised.

      He is not alone, and the Roman Catholic Church appears to share similar concerns. In a 2018 pastoral letter to his congregation (yet surely read by far more than his congregation), Archbishop William Goh shares an openness to repealing section 377A of the penal code on the condition that

Parliament puts in place a formulation that more perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the law, guaranteeing the protection of the rights of the majority who favour the traditional family, and that no further demands be made to legalise same-sex unions, adoption of babies by same sex couples, surrogacy, or to criminalise those who do not support the homosexual lifestyle.6

Conclusion

     Are the two concerns for individual and society mutually exclusive? Perhaps not since both parties were able to provide concrete answers to the two questions, and the Christian understanding of society does not emphasise one at the cost of the other.7One does not need to trample on other people in order to advocate for the welfare of society; neither does one need to allow society to be tossed by the winds of secular wisdom in order to affirm the worth of the individual person. Christians today need not choose one over the other, but applying Paul’s advice to the Philippians, should instead begin any engagement on the issue by dealing with these two concerns: Seeking forgiveness from those who have been hurt in the name of Christ, and recognising the genuine concerns Christians have for the wellbeing of society.

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1 Philippians 2:3-4 (NRSV).
2 To be clear, I do not consider FCC to be activists, in the sense of being militant advocates for an ideology. Rather, the congregation stands in that curious intersection of being both Christians, and part of the LGBT community.
3 Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s (New York: Plume, 1990).
4 Benjamin Lim, “Lou Engle: An American Threatens a Christian-Muslim Divide in Singapore,” RICE, March 25, 2018, accessed October 16, 2020, https://www.ricemedia.co/current-affairs-features-lou-engle-american-threatens-christian-muslim-divide-singapore/.
5 Coconuts Singapore, “Christian Group TrueLove.Is Hit with Fresh Criticism from Singapore’s LGBT Community,” Coconuts Singapore, last modified July 25, 2019, accessed October 16, 2020, https://coconuts.co/singapore/news/trueloveis-lgbt-singapore-criticism-instagram-conversion/.
6 William Goh, “Pastoral Letter on S377A to Catholics,” The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore, n.d., accessed October 16, 2020, https://www.catholic.sg/pastoral-letter-archbishop-s377a/.
7 Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good, trans. John J. Fitzgerald (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1948).