Today is a day when thousands of people will gather in London to celebrate Gay Pride and I’ve been thinking about the Christian response to it.

It is a truism that the world ‘knows’ the church hates gay people. Sadly, there are too many examples of kids coming out to Christian parents and being thrown out of their house or taking their lives because of the rejection and hate they received.

So how should we respond?

Some will say love is love and who am I to condemn, and yet more will say hate the sin but love the sinner, but why does hate come into it at all? Why is the focus on what we think is wrong? Am I being soft on sin? Well, I don’t think so, but sin, however we view it, is not the problem. The remedy of the cross means that our sins are dealt with in an instant. And we need to bear in mind that all relationships, same sex or otherwise, are not what God originally intended in the Garden of Eden.

So, what do I mean?

Anyone who does not know Christ has a broken relationship with their Father in heaven. Jesus came to earth to make a way for us to come back to the Father. He was able to love the people the religious elite of his day hated without focussing on their sin. He didn’t say to Zacchaeus “I would love to come to your house, but you need to repent first.” No, he said: “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus ends by saying “You go, and do likewise.”

Jesus isn’t asking us to approve of someone’s lifestyle or their transition to their chosen gender or the pronouns they ask you to use, he’s asking us to take people as they are, loving them as Christ loves us.
It doesn’t matter if the people at Pride love us or hate us.

In Luke 6: v 27-28 Jesus said:

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

I will end with this question. If a same sex couple came into your church on a Sunday, proudly wearing their wedding rings and pushing a buggy with a child in it, how would you react? Would you be overjoyed that someone new has come to experience the love of God or would you be muttering under your breath about the need for repentance? When anyone experiences the love of God they respond, but when they experience the judgement of the church they walk away, perhaps never to return.