Our church has a rare mix of conservatives, moderates, and liberals, so when we mount a civil discussion of live-wire issues, we must carefully plan and pray. One such discussion came last year, when we hosted a public conversation around the issue of homosexuality and the Asian American evangelical church.
About a month prior, I delivered three sermons to give our members a framework for why we felt this was important, and also to explain the unusual approach we were using for the event. It was going to be a real conversation between three Asian American evangelicals—a straight man who held a traditional view (me), a former staff member who is now openly gay, and a straight member who is disturbed that our church doesn’t affirm those with same-sex attraction.
While I wouldn’t refute the biblical mandate for chastity among all Christian singles, I also pointed out that there will never be a day when everyone else shares all of your convictions. For us all to share this one planet (and office space and even families), we need to pursue “convicted civility.”
The event itself drew over 400 people, including a smattering of homosexual Christians and an intriguing mix of fundamentalists and progressives. What they all heard was not only an attempt at a civil conversation, but also the rarely heard story of an evangelical Asian American who had struggled an entire lifetime with whether his attraction to men was sin or from God. It was definitely uncomfortable at times, but it was also breathtaking to empower someone who felt banished by us to tell his story. Two weeks later, the California Supreme Court (later trumped by Proposition 8) declared that our state couldn’t discriminate against same-sex couples in marriage. We had no idea that that was in the pipeline but were very grateful that we had already addressed the issue.
